the feel of her name
by Blue Jeans
Summary: Partially Manga based: Driven by the feeling of unease, Mars will stumble upon the start of a war that had long been foretold. Her discovery will force the other Senshi to face and make decisions that will echo through time... SilverMill
1. the forest

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters. They are the creations of Naoko Takeuchi, based entirely on her manga.

If you have time, please let me know: Was this too melodramatic? Too angsty? Too different? Too out-of-character? (_Why the hell did you pick those corny/awkward names?_ - that type of thing) Thanks!

* * *

_Khariton - Lord Jadeite_

_Beset - Lady Mars_

* * *

**the feel of her name**

_Couldn't save you from the start  
Love you so it hurts my soul  
Can you forgive me for trying again  
Your silence makes me hold my breath  
Time has passed you by_

-Forgiven by Within Temptation

* * *

**1. _the forest_**

* * *

Beset woke up and immediately she knew something was wrong. Her dreams had been full of shadows these days but they had not been frightening, at least, not compared to the visions that visited her at the oddest hours in the day. Yet, with an acrimonious taste in her mouth and her head feeling off (when she had not part-taken in any drinks of revelry the night before) she wondered what it was that disturbed her enough to call her out of bed. It was too early, even for her.

A restless settled in her limbs and she rose reluctantly from the warmth of her bedding with jittery legs. She threw on some robes that were somewhat more decent than her nightgown before venturing breathlessly into the halls. Not many people were up at this time of morning, but the night-shift guards and a few servants still wondered the halls. The Earth was a detailed globe in the harsh light of the bright white sun, still not yet at the peak of its dance across the heavens. The shadow spells still spilled weak darkness onto the floors of the opened hallways and the servants in charge of dousing them when it was late enough out had not risen themselves to the task. It was warm but Beset shivered as her legs moved her towards a destination she wasn't quite sure the directions to herself.

And when she finally stopped, she was even more unsettled and slightly annoyed at herself. The pressure in her chest finally subsided a little, but the great doors did not invite her. Her eyes narrowed as she looked up the gold intricate details and tried to will herself to turn around and walk away from the Observations Room. Yet, disturbingly enough, despite her usual self composure, this morning she remained unmoved before the great doors. She was rooted there with indecision. A part of her wanted to turn right around and go back to her room, it swore colorfully about losing sleep for such ridiculous, childish, and womanly issues. Another part of her, the part that left her finger tips tingling with dread and anticipation was even stronger.

She _knew_ something was wrong.

No amount of denial or bluster could deny the part of her that had always known these things that were to come to pass. Her hands, like an alien appendages, moved on their own and the door opened beneath her dry palms. Her lips thinned but she had made up her mind before she took her first steps into the room. Her eyes took in the empty chamber, the screens mounted on the walls were on, but the observatory table itself was black and sleeping (as she should still be). Here was where they had often caught their Princess sighing dreamily at images of the Earth Prince but days ago.

Beset suppressed an irritated sigh, this time it was aimed at herself. She had often scolded the Princess for such foolish behaviors. The child was longing for something that could - and probably would - tear their worlds apart, if the prophecies were correct in their warnings. If they could only cement this alliance, perhaps soon she could speak with gentler tones when those hurt eyes turned to her. Yet, now, now was not the time for kindness when kindness would betray her duties to her people, even if it won her favors with her Princess. The prophecy warned them of it, her disturbingly more frequent visions confirmed it, and the omens, the bloody shadows that hinted at a war without the same overwhelming images of disaster settled inside of her dreams where her visions couldn't always reach her.

Beset swallowed the bitterness still on her tongue. It almost tasted like blood. She strode over to the observation table and it came to life at her touch. When the Earthian ambassadors came, this was an off-limits room and, for those months, the Counselor Artemis would seal off their memories concerning this section of the palace. The precautions were expected for their guests were not ready to know just how easily it was to monitor the planet that stood so prominently in their Lunarian skies, not when they were already quite uncomfortable. Until peace talks were more solid, Luna had advised the Queen to cut off the meeting place entirely for all who could not protect their minds from eavesdropping. This was, of course, not the only place not to be mentioned, but it was certainly not something they needed knowledge about.

Her eyes glittered from the lights of the floating screens. Beset punched in the clearance code and only when wilderness filled the screen did she let go of her breath. No, nothing here, but why did it show at all? "The Lord Jadeite," she repeated herself, perplexed on whether or not the machine had misunderstood her. She never trusted technology, and though she considered Lady Mercury a sister, the Hermisian's toys always made her uneasy. She was just being paranoid, after all. The scene before her didn't change and Beset began to shake her head. Perhaps, I was wrong? She thought this with a bit of relief.

Even though she has _never_ been wrong...

Beset stilled as she reached to tuck away a stray strand of red hair. She was almost ready to switch off the confounding Hermisian automaton but stopped to stare with growing dread as the sunlight on Earth reflected off of something unnatural. There, in the shadows, was that a glint of gold? Her hand trembled as she maneuvered the screen to zoom in on that speck of dust. _It had to be dust... or those strange rocks that-_

She frowned, annoyed at the rising panic inside of her. What was wrong with her? He was a grown man who could take care of himself. He was, in fact, far better at it than many men she'd met in her life, but...

It wasn't dust or rock or metal. It was hair. His hair.

Beset's breath shuddered to a stop in her throat and in that moment, in that heart stopping moment, she made a decision.

* * *

Lord Jadeite was having a very pleasant dream. In his dream, he was quite dead. This might not be some people's ideal dream, but all his pains had stopped aching and it was such a relief that he was rather apprehensive about death being over (and only a dream, for that matter). He had been having terrible luck lately, after all, and who's to say he won't go back to haunt some annoying person or other because of his rather violent death? He dreamt that he was in Elysion, which was apparently darker than he thought it would be but he couldn't complain too much as long as it continued to be absolutely peaceful for a little longer. After one's been tortured for what felt like years, dark Elysian was a rather nice change of scenery.

In fact, maybe it's dark because his eyes were closed?

Well, Lord Jadeite thought to himself, I could open them. He hesitated on this part and decided that perhaps, it was better to just keep them closed. Who's to say that Elysian wasn't as pretty as it was rumored to be? It would be a terrible waste to dash expectations when he could continue the pretense. After all, it was the resting place of warrior men, and as much as he longed for peace and could appreciate picturesque scenery, _Warrior Men_ were not particularly known for their decorative tastes. Valor never chose a man due to his sense of the aesthetic, and the battlefield usually didn't help much in a sector that required more of an appreciation for_fine_ living, and not so much just being alive in general. From what he experienced with his own men, even with the other Kings or Endymion for that matter, they tried to live very minimalistic lives for practical and cautionary reasons. Well, Lord Zoisite perhaps was the only one who had any sense at all, and he wasn't sure he always understood what was going on with the other, even when he could read the other's intentions clearly.

Then again, nothing quite made one as uncomfortable (aside from the usual hang-over) as waking up to orange, harry rugs and another warrior's idea of art.

In fact, one drunken night, Lord Nephrite and he had passed some very bad wine between themselves and speculated on what might wait for them in Elysion. Suffice to say that from what he remembered of the tawdry night contained images from Nephrite he wished he had been too drunk to even recall. Alcohol impaired his control and of all nights, that was not the night he wanted to recollect.

He almost got his palm read that night too, but he had enough wit not to extend his hand at least, which probably explained why he remembered what he did.

Why was he still feeling so fuzzy? Lord Jadeite wondered and sighed inwardly. He had tried sighing out loud earlier and that hadn't turned out very well for his ribs. Then again, he hadn't been in Elysian then and-

It was the presence. He felt suddenly alert. Well, this certainly must be Elysian. Why else would he feel _her_ here? She would never set foot on Earth until the negotiations were packed down solid. She followed the rules almost as strictly as he did himself. And the Moon, what a strange place still after all these years...

"My Lord!" her voice reached his ear and then her hesitant fingers brushed against his hair. _Ah, heaven._ Lord Jadeite thought and began to grin. The grin turned into a wince when his lips felt like they were being split by the very action so he went back to not grinning. Well, so it was not quite heaven, he amended. And was it just him or did he feel a bit crusty? Did warriors feel crusty (or pain) in Elysion? And '_My Lord_'? he wondered. Elysion needed to learn his preferences better before this whole death thing continued.

"Ow!" he exclaimed then swore. "What did you do that for?" Well, at least he tried to say it, with great outrage, though it just came out very garbled, even to his own ears.

She raised a brow at him when he tried out his most intimidating frown on her with his bruised features and his closed eyes. An earlier flash of annoyance left no more evidence on her face than her concern had. Instead, she wore the mild look of amusement as she stilled his movements, this time with a better placed touched. For someone who had just poked at his bruised face, he felt that she was enjoying herself a bit too much! He winced at the throbbing pains making itself known after he had been so blissfully unaware of them before. He stopped only because wincing hurt and he didn't need any more pains, he decided disagreeably. This whole death thing was rather overrated too, like dungeons, he concluded. "Just didn't want you to break anything else with all that shifting," she told him artlessly.

"Bloody Mars," he swore again, or tried to. His lips felt like they were also sealed shut with wax, or just from a total lack of moisture, every time he closed them. The blood from my bleeding lips will certainly change that, he thought gloomily as he tested to see if he were missing any teeth with his tongue. _Hey, I have a tongue!_ he realized belatedly and with all too much triumph for his own liking. Well, that's not very fair, he thought to himself ironically. The woman of my dreams comes after me in death and I still look (and feel) like Death had just picked me out of the gutters!

Jadeite winced more successfully this time and finally cracked open an eye to see her face, her beautiful face. Well, at least one of them is pretty, and it's not like I even have to look at myself! he added to soothe the slight smarting of his pride. She was certainly not at all gentle, not even when that was all he wanted from her, that's for sure, he grumped to get his mind off the previous topic. However, he was wise enough to keep that particular afterthought to himself so he wouldn't be killed a second time. In case he could be killed a second time, that is.

"Am I to haunt you now from the dead?" he finally croaked. He thought that wasn't so bad, he had a voice after all and he was no longer using it to swear at her or the gods or the ghostly body that wasn't quite so nerveless as he had hoped. It didn't sound any better than his previous attempts, but if he was the haunting type of ghost then maybe he wouldn't be supplied with a pleasant voice. If he was to haunt his lady, even if he looked bad, at least _he_would be able to keep looking at her lovely face and listening to her lovelier voice, forever. He could peek into her baths too, and scare away future suitors who thought just because he was dead and she was heartbroken, they could save her or some such none sense! Perhaps it wasn't so bad he looked and sounded like he got dragged out of the gutters, after all. Protruding ribs and a rotting limb here or there tend to be more of a visual deterrent than his normal, put together self. Not that he wasn't intimidating when he wanted to be while he had been alive...

If he had competition in Elysian that is, or was forced out of it for some reason, he was prepared.

"Well," she finally said after a pause where she just stared at him in disbelief. "Apparently a near-death experience have left you with a sense of humor," she commented dryly and quite a bit of disapproval. Then her eyes turned sharp and he thought it wasn't very fair that he was dead and her first real words to him were all in jest or chastisement.

_Where was her grief?_

Lord Jadeite felt cheated. He wondered if he could keep his title even though he was technically dead. He thought, maybe he could convince Endymion to retain him at least as an advisor, if he was ever to get out of Elysian. Sure he may not be able to defend the lad anymore, but he could still watch over the other. Loyalty to the bloody end, and beyond! He was starting to like the sound of that.

"Bloody hell, I hurt," he finally groaned when he tried to shift to get up. No use lazing around when there was a whole slew of things he still needed to accomplish, dead or alive.

His lady's steady hands stopped him from squirming as she glared at him. "Stop that," she commanded him. Her eyes wondered their surroundings. "I don't know where we are, but I'll get us out of here."

He wanted to point out to her that people didn't really leave Elysion once they got there. After all, dead people just didn't come back to life. Unless, of course, there existed some secret Lunarian spell for just such things. He wouldn't put it past the Lady Queen, but he thought his own lady was just a bit too grim looking for someone who was about to bring him back to life, so most likely there was no return-to-life spell waiting to revive him. "Can you stand?" she asked him and then frowned. "Never mind, you don't look like you could sit up," she concluded without waiting for him to answer.

He was about to protest that dead people can handle these inconveniences, such as physical discomforts. They're not really supposed to have physical discomforts, after all. And he was a _man_, a dead one, but still a man, the last time he checked. However, all protests quickly became more of a groan of pain when he tried to utilize his neck to lift his head after her retreating fingers. His skull thudded against the soft ground for the effort and he was thankful no more pains made themselves known to him for the moment.

Death, apparently, was less forgiving than the ballads suggested. Though, come to think of it, what the hell did those bards know about death, anyway? They were quite alive when they sung about it and, from the few bards he knew personally, they had an uncanny knack for disappearing in the face of oncoming danger.

She was rising away from him. Despite the utter pain, he lifted his hand and grasped at her skirt. His hand burned, his fingers burned, and he was unsure whether or not he wanted to inspect the damage of his hand, but he didn't want her to go. "Don't go," he voiced his thought. His voice was getting hoarser and despite the sudden vulnerability he was exposing to her, he couldn't dredge up his earlier pride to care. He was far more afraid she would go and lose her way, or never come back. He didn't want her to disappear when he finally got her next to him, when her presence finally told him things her eyes and her face and her words never had and never could.

Or perhaps, it was his own feelings that he was truly confronting for the first time. Not Endymion, not Kunzite, not Nephrite nor Zoisite. _Her_. It was her face, framed by the black-green shadows of tall trees and the grey light of the cloudy skies that he had wanted to see. It was her surreal beauty and vivid, other-worldly colors that he had prayed to witness one last time before death took him from the world. It was her red, tempting lips, now thinned in displeasure as she reached down that had kept him alive through every vaguely remembered pain of the past few weeks or years or days. It was her hot and gentle touch, encircling his wrist as she tried to loosen his weakened grip that made him want to rise from the ground, despite his pains. "I must find you help, my Lord," she told him firmly. Then her eyes fell on his hand and there was an expression that came over her before the white, hot rage that lit her face and all the colors he felt that was her inside of his mind. The rage blanked everything out, but before that was a moment that could have made any hell heaven to him.

He had seen it at last, the look of horror and concern and grief. He had felt it, the utter, bone melting warmth of pain that was close to pleasure. It infused his battered body till he felt for a moment ready for the darkness once more. The exhilaration overrode any worries he might have had for his own appendage. A spark of her feelings for him on her face could light an answering fire inside of him. Then he watched, transfixed and fascinated as she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his cracked knuckles with a tenderness he didn't know she could possess. It was so soft it felt like the caress of a breeze, something he had always thought would only ever happen in his dreams. "I'll get you out of here, Khariton," she promised him softly.

A twinge of forgotten worry came and went beneath the warmth settling over him at her touch. She had told him years ago that her people's gift was one of fire and it ran through their blood. She would have left him a cloak but she had never needed one, no matter how cold it had been for anyone else. "I am protected by the sacred fire of Mars," she had explained to him once when he had offered his jacket to her one cold evening. He had been surprised by the heated touch of her hand on his cold cheeks and her warm breath mingling with his. "I am fire, my Lord," she told him with a surprising spark of mischief in her eyes. He often thought it was the influence of Lady Venus that made her able to smile those surprising smiles he so rarely caught, the smiles that were so unlike her character.

She had wanted to build a camp fire but he had resisted her efforts while she quietly inspected any other his wounds he had, other than his hands. "It will draw attention," he warned her. "I do not remember how exactly I ended up here," he admitted. There had been a helplessness in her eyes, a surprising anguish as she had smoothed his hair and nodded with great difficulty before turning away slightly. Her rage had abated slightly. The fleeting expression earlier seemed to have been a catalyst, and a dam seemed to have broken inside her as the weariness settled in. He had never seen such honesty on her features for she had always been so reserved, too self-conscious at even the worst of times to let go of the tight control she had over her features.

"Alright," she had finally agreed, unable to look at him with a shame that colored her brightness with shadows. "I will go get help," she promised and finally set his hand gently back to the ground.

Then she was gone, taking all the warmth and happiness of the world with her. His name from her lips had been as soft and as ephemeral as the kiss she had placed upon his hand. He ached after her. If he could, he would have crawled after her. Like the moths that lose their wings to the fire when they approached too close to the flame, only to crawl towards the warm brightness pathetically in the dirt when they were not able to fly.

A breeze rushed through the trees with the promise of a storm. He watched the grey clouds move across the sky like waves in a turbulent sea. _Beset, Beset_, he whispered her name in his mind, reaching for her familiar presence. He could still feel it faintly, further than he would like, but still close enough to sooth him. Every part of him searched out for her, worrying that she would lose her way or run into something unpleasant. He would not be able to help her and the helplessness he had seen in her eyes when she looked at him was worse than the physical discomforts he was having trouble ignoring.

"Pathetic," said the familiar voice when the breeze stilled. Purple silk silently settled beside him. It was warm despite the coldness of the voice that greeted him. The woman's perfume was pleasant though he regrettably discovered that he would always associate the smell of hyacinth with evil from now on, despite having liked the flower quite a bit in his youth. The woman leaned down. Her flowing, curling hair brushed against his skin as she skillfully unbuttoned his shirt. Red nails trailed along his cheek-bones as he tried to turn away but he had been unable to move since she had stopped beside his prone form. "The child promised to get help and come back for you, Khariton," the woman said with a mocking purr. "We must not keep her hopes up forever, must we?"

"That name is not for you to use," he hissed through clenched teeth and wished he could rise to strike her. He was so weak and the spell was so strong. Now that she knew his name, it bound him to her and to the ground. This villain had been there all along, searching for his Achilles heel. He wondered how he could have forgotten, but that was also the effect of such spells.

Her green eyes were not angry as she looked at him. "You wouldn't tell me, so I had to resort to such petty tricks," she admonished him instead. "You are a coy man, to have become such a tease! You were so honest and serious once, Lord Jadeite. But now, that child has reduced you to no more than a court jester. And like all the other failed heroes of your time, you can no longer seem to think outside of your breeches."

He gritted his teeth and would have fisted his hands if he could have moved.

The woman's warm hands were not the same as the small ones that had moments ago held his. These strange hands could have been called elegant for those fingers were even longer than Beset's, but he could only feel disgust when her flesh came into contact with his naked chest. He had always hated to be touched by others, flesh-to-flesh and the feel of a person came like smell or a sound or a color in his mind.

The Lady Beryl smiled down at him reassuringly while her red nails became like claws, but to him she had always been a smell that was too strong to be pleasant and a color that was too deep to not fear. Her thoughts were like poison in his mind and he could not get her out, for she was a tainted being that was at once too bright to be lovely and too black to be light.

She traced a teasing pattern on his skin that left him breaking out in a cold sweat of dread. "You managed very well, I must say. You had almost gotten away, but I have finally found your most precious thing," she said with a sigh of pleasure. The dark spell she had engraved into his skin once again revealed itself as she shifted the runes over to his left breast, just over his beating heart. "It is good I had waited for her arrival. For otherwise, how could I have known this wish? Ah, and what a foolish wish it is that your heart whispers so treacherously in our ears! Good thing the Prince would never know of it, hm?"

Beryl smiled up at him from where she had lain her ear, as if to listen to the organ that pounded beneath muscle and bones. Slowly then, with a cold and knowing smile, as if they were conspirators in a despicable crime, she lifted herself up and away. Yet, there could be no relief for now it was her hand over his exposed left breast.

Lord Jadeite could not move, could not answer anymore, and could not scream. However, even though he could have closed his eyes, he never looked away even as he watched Beryl take out his heart with slow, agonizing movements. Gracefully she parted his flesh, but it was too painful a process to acknowledge.

When Lady Beryl finished, she licked her hand clean of his blood with solemn gravity, like a cat savoring the last of a rare and delicious meal. She looked down to the glassy eyes on a slackened face at her feet with a small hint of disappointment. "Defiant to the end," she said with reluctant admiration. "Don't worry my brave general," she assured him with a gentle smile as she caressed the heart in her hands before her lovely face turned into a malevolent leer of triumph. "I will bring you back and wipe this filth from your pure desires, my Lord _Khariton_."

* * *

Beset stopped dead in her tracks. She had not left Khariton for long. The idiot would not listen to her and be still, despite his wounds and she only had enough time to check for the most obvious ones. She bit her lips the first chance she had, as soon as she was out of sight, and felt as if her lungs were collapsing. He had been tortured! Sure, she knew already he had been beaten to an inch of his life but... _tortured_? And though she had read about such things extensively, she had never beheld it, much less on someone she... cared about.

His hands...

Beset felt weak for wincing and had tried to hide the tremble in her own hands when she had held onto his, but she had been so angry. She felt the tears gather in her eyes at the utter helpless rage that filled her heart at the unknown beings that did this to him. For a moment, she thought she wouldn't have minded to see his world burn, but then came the dark, cold calm. It had been more terrifying than her anger, the hatred that came to her so easily and settled like a hard lump of stone in her gut.

So she had to do something because the thing she most wanted to do, to heal him and take him away, was something she had not the power to do on her own. She had to get away and gather herself up so that he would not see the blackness in her eyes that increased with every wound uncovered. She wanted to do more for him than just leaving him there, but she was afraid what she might do if she discovered anything else on him she had not already noticed.

At first she thought she would go and locate some sturdy materials, something she could fashion to carry him away on, straight out of this gods forsaken forest that is. She even entertained the thought of finding a good place for teleportation and waiting for the moon rise to take him off this gods forsaken planet! Yet, something drove her to search so she wouldn't start destroying things with her aimless rage, or worse, cry because of the utter uselessness she felt welling inside of her. She would even deal with the people of this horrible world if she had to, if it would secure his safety and comfort. If it would stop her from burning everything down in her path.

Ah, Earth! She had wondered at the world the Lunarians based their own world upon, but not a moment had she savored the arrival. The grey skies were too dim and foreboding, unlike the warmth of the rose skies of her home or the crystal blue that was supposed to be an Earth-like illusion on the Moon. The trees were too many, dense and still, they stood in her path and caused her to stumble, always unsure of her footing here, on unfamiliar grounds. It was too foreign for her, and she did not want Khariton to die _here_. Without the honor or the glory of battle how could he possibly fade so obscurely in this unknown place? It was what she had always imagined his end whenever she looked at him. He was like a golden sun, much like her friend and commander, and she had always thought he would blaze out suddenly from this world when he was at his brightest hour.

It was what drew her to him, until the shadows wrapped tighter and tighter arms around his form. Sometimes she was afraid to look at him, at the darkness that waited not only in his shadows but all around him. And with each passing tender look he gave her, with each longing glance he tried to hide and each touch that lingered longer along her arm or her back at the end of a dance, she saw the shadows grow around him and multiply.

Since then, she had started to pray, desiring for the first time that her eyes were lying, that it was no longer the truth she saw but the a fear of the future prophesied. It was the gravest sin to be committed by any Martian born who carried the sight. To deny one's ultimate gift from the very hands of the gods themselves was to live for all eternity for shame of such denials. It was to take the path of destruction, to ultimately lose the things that mattered most...

Her fists were clenched so tight she could have drawn blood at such thoughts, but she couldn't relax nor hope for anything else. She was going to save him. Whatever it cost her, she would protect him from the fate that awaited them all. The restlessness was upon her again as her resolve grew from her faithless decision, and then, suddenly, as if all the air around her had vanished, she was stopped. It had felt as if she was being suffocated. It had been a moment of pure panic and utter disorientation, and before she knew it she was on the ground. She couldn't even remember collapsing gracelessly or hitting the forest floor, but that was where she found herself.

A sharp pain had shot through her chest as she laid there, panting, lacking the breath to scream. Then it was gone, and emptiness invaded her senses. Beset laid on the forest floor afraid to draw in air, afraid to think. Her eyes blinked at the black spots as she tried to absorb the pain that spread throughout her dully, starting from the palm of her left hand. She laid there and knew.

Khariton was gone.

She wanted to cry but no tears would come. She wanted to move but her limbs felt like they were made of lead. Minutes or hours or days passed before she could finally move again, but dread made her even clumsier. Her arms shook, but she started a slow crawl back, one arm before the other as she clawed at dirt and shoved her body forward. She turned towards the way she came and began the slow, torturous journey back. She had plenty of time already to try to assuage her fears and more than enough time to decide what needed to be done as she laid there in a daze. Mud and dirt clung to her hair, thorns from shrubs and sharp branches ripped at her dress and scratched at her skin. Beset ignored all of these things and she crawled, slowly rising a little higher each time till she was finally able to stumble drunkenly onto her feet.

He was gone. She could feel it. She could feel what wasn't there anymore. She just couldn't face that it was happening. He was alright when she had only been there so short a time ago. She shouldn't have gone. She should have taken him with her, she thought accusingly to herself. The anger and hatred was there again, but this time aimed at herself. Beneath all of these clamoring thoughts was pain. It was a feeling of loss so intense she staggered, now and again when it surfaced unexpectedly through the rage and the grief. She thought to herself then that she would rather feel anything else in all the worlds except _this_.

She shouldn't have left him.

_But he was not gone. He cannot be gone!_ She repeated these thoughts like a mantra in her head. Her sanity felt a bit frayed around the edges and the world seemed a little hazy. Damn the man, he can't just up and go that easily. The gods knew how often she thought about strangling him herself when they got into an argument. When he first touched her hand, skin on skin, when he first brushed his mind intimately against her own, she had thought it strangely wonderful, at the same time, discomforting. She knew him from that touch. He was just too damn stubborn to... to...

She couldn't think it.

A tree root made itself very well acquainted with her foot when she stumbled over it and nearly twisted her ankle in the process. She also nearly impaled herself on another out-stretched limb but caught herself just in time. It felt like years, but with dread she finally broke through the low ferns and saw his boot sticking out innocently enough from the shrubs that obscured his body. "Lord Jadeite," she rasped, hating the desperate way she sounded as she stumbled to a stop beside his prone body, just the way she left him, except...

Except it wasn't so.

She expected, wanted, despaired for an arch reply. She searched desperately for that tilted chin and the mercurial smile that so rarely appeared on his lips. She wanted to see his eyes, for they always looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first and last time, as if he was drinking her in but was never fulfilled. It was that look he had tried so studiously hard for her not to see the first year and much of the next. Yet, one evening, in the midst of a grand celebration, their eyes had met across the ballroom and there had been no more hiding-

The first thing she smelled was hyacinth.

Beset stopped and swayed as she looked and found his perfect face among the greens and browns. His slightly golden skin was now ashen beneath the light tan. His eyes that had seemed so amused and so hungry when she had first found him lying there were now flat and empty. There was blood, but he had already been bloody and bruised and incredibly dirty when she had come upon him earlier. And then there it was, unable to be ignored and the one thing she didn't want to acknowledge, a ragged hole in his chest made her feel as if her own chest was being emptied as she stood there unmoving.

Beset didn't even remember turning but she was already stumbling into a tree when she had an inkling of what was to come afterwards. Then she vomited. She would have felt disgraced if she wasn't so occupied with trying to stop herself from the wrecking sobs that shook her while she was expelling the few contents of her stomach. And just a moment ago she couldn't summon the tears. Now they poured out of her like the blood pooling around his body. She would have felt utterly shamed if it wasn't so hard to breath, to stop the sight that made her see the empty future that no longer held the warm light that had been his life. To know that she would always see this whenever she looked back into the past, this very moment, of him lying in a forest with a hole where his heart had been...

She gagged.

Her legs shook and she slid to the ground. Slowly, very slowly, she turned. She didn't want to go but because she couldn't deny herself despite the sickness in her stomach and the acid in her mouth, she crawled back to him. She was a woman of Mars. They were women used to fighting on the deserts of their world against both men and dragons, used to the wide skies and the blood beneath their feet. Her foremothers and forefathers had let go of loved ones, had lived with the knowledge of a future without a beloved ever passing through the sight again, and survived it with only songs to remember them by. Yet, as she gathered him to her, hands slipping against his blood and the gore of his wounds, she could not summon the strength to be as strong or as untouched as those who had passed before her.

Her pale arms closed around him as she whispered her apologies, and then, she felt the tides of reality brush against her soul. She smelled hyacinth on his skin and she thought of the first time he traced the line of her palm. She thought of the warning she spoke to him as she placed her hand on his chest, right over the hole that now resides there-

_"Don't ever speak your name to them. It gives your enemies Power."_

She remembered the serious look in his eyes when he had closed his gloved fingers over her own and promised her he would take care of the advice she entrusted to him. He had spoken her name under the unerring blue lights of Earth, his home planet, and his eyes had silently vowed other things that they had not the right to promise with words to each other.

She remembered delicately tracing the characters of her name into his palm, the warm roughness beneath her finger when she touched the scars of his labors. She had laughingly corrected him many times on the pronunciations of her alien name on his foreign tongue, tracing the patterns again and again against his skin in emphasis. She remembered the feel of his name engraved into her own skin, warm and familiar, his breath ghosting her ear with syllables she had never heard of. She wished it didn't hurt so much now to remember the feeling of his warm, calloused hands encircling her own. She never imagined that she would be haunted by the memory of discovering how small her hands seemed in his. Her shoulders shook against the once happy past, as if she could shed them like the snakes Venus loved, those creatures that shed their skins when the seasons changed. She wished she were strong, but she could not even subdue the shudders that came with her sobs or dam the deluge of the intense and unfamiliar wreckage of the feeling called _Loss_.

Then, slowly, the noises that worked up her throat, passed her clenched teeth, loosened her jaw and finally her lips. Beset couldn't even recall when she started, but the low sound wrapped around her tighter and tighter. The slow, building echoes of pain in her throat gained volume as they tore through her. And once she started, she didn't know how to stop. But no matter how much the tears fell, no matter how loudly her voice rang, Khariton would only continue to stare out into the trees...

No longer would he be able to ever hear her thoughts again.

* * *

"Two birds with one stone," Lady Beryl gloated as she trailed one perfect nail down the cold heart in her hand. She was immensely satisfied by the screams she could hear from her place in the forest. She was surprised how fast the child got back, for the sounds were still fairly close, but such alien beings would probably have powers she couldn't imagine. Well, soon those powers would be hers, and that was all she was really concerned about.

Beneath her, even the youma was moved enough by what it heard to pause. In its utter stupidity, it dared to look behind it in wonder. She hit it over the head with her whip to teach it a lesson for such idiocy, her face no longer pleasant. "What are you stopping for? Did I tell you to stop?"

The youma cowered before hulking down on four legs and starting to run again.

When they were moving steadily once more, Lady Beryl sat back and allowed herself to smile again. Soon, she promised herself. Soon, I'll have the rest of the four, and the Prince Endymion's heart would be the final jewel to my lovely prize. Lady Beryl smiled to herself as she gently cradled her new companion's heart to her breast.

_Next time you two meet, child, I wonder what your screams would sound like then?_

To such thoughts, Beryl laughed a sweet, appealing laugh, as her shadows became one with the forest.

* * *

**_TBC._**

_For sm-monthly LJ community challenge, concerning the song Forgiven by Within Temptation__  
_


	2. the soundless

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters. They are the creations of Naoko Takeuchi, based entirely on her manga.

* * *

_Beset - Lady Mars_

* * *

**the feel of her name**

___I've been so lost since you've gone  
Why not me before you?  
Why did fate deceive me?  
Everything turned out so wrong  
Why did you leave me in silence?_  


-Forgiven by Within Temptation

* * *

**2. _the soundless_**

* * *

"How is she?" Lady Venus asked as she closed her hands over Lady Jupiter's trembling fingers.

"Better," the brunette said with a sigh. "The healers have taken off the restraints now that they are sure she won't hurt herself, but..." Jupiter blinked back tears of helplessness while Venus led them to a sofa. They both sank down onto it, and a look of relief came over Jupiter's face at no longer having to support herself while recalling such terrible things. "It's awful!" the other finally confessed as a whoosh of air escaped out of her lips at finally admitting it out loud.

Venus frowned, her eyes hard. "It's alright. It's not your fault." The blonde looked away, overcome by irritation, but she did not stay silent long. "She shouldn't even be like this! She was made stronger than this-" At that moment, Lady Mercury came in, interrupting their conversation. The other closed the door quietly behind her, but there was a start in her when she looked up to see them. "Her highness?" Venus asked the surprised woman when Mercury did not move from her place by the door.

The other only blinked at them before she caught herself, and Venus realized just how on edge Mercury must have been to be in such a state. "Asleep, at last," the blue-haired woman answered, a bit more chilly and blunt than usual since she was still trying to compose herself. Mercury crossed the room swiftly before sinking onto a cushioned chair, a bit closer to the window and a little further away from where Venus and Jupiter sat. Mercury never did like to have others observe her, and she liked it even less when she was in no state to deal with any company but her own. If she could choose to remain apart and in shadows, she would.

They all sat in silence then. It was uncomfortable, but nobody wanted or had the energy to speak. It had taken them three days and three sleepless nights to find Lady Mars. Three days had passed entirely before a fatigued but unhinged Venus stormed into the Observation Room, demanding to see the logs of teleportation. This had only happened because she was so sleep-deprived and desperate that she would have gone teleporting herself if she hadn't thought to check the logs first. Of all the places, going to Earth was probably the very last option she would have ever associated to a choice that Mars would have made. And, even when she had looked through the logs, she did not suspect that the last place Mars had looked herself was an isolated forest, on _Earth_.

She had obviously been wrong about a lot of things from that moment on. The relief of finding Mars was now completely overshadowed by the feeling of absolute betrayal. After all, they only found the other because the Observation Room remembered the Senshi's last entry three days prior, and only because she had been crazy enough to check. She had not known, had not even been afforded the courtesy of a note concerning the plans Mars had of leaving the Moon - the other's post! - and now she could only speculate that Mars had not trusted her enough to tell her _this_.

And the state they had recovered her in...

"Do you think she's fit enough for me to speak to her?" Venus finally asked Jupiter, breaking the silence in her restless agitation.

"I don't think that's a good idea right now," Jupiter informed their leader with a weary and skeptical look in her eyes. The Senshi of Jupiter had not had the energy to be angry with Mars since she found her superior on Earth. Her fellow Senshi was certainly breaking numerous laws and treaties, but the other was also utterly broken herself. Jupiter had been at a loss, really. She had never thought, of all of them, that Mars would be the one to do something as foolish as this, and certainly never over a man of Earth! Once upon a time, if someone had speculated on such similar happenings, Jupiter might have considered herself or Venus to be the most likely of candidates, they were far more easily overcome by emotions, after all. Even cold and shy Mercury would have been chosen, because the woman was more shy than cold, before she would have thought to pick steadfast, rule-abiding Mars. And yet, here they were. "The healers were adamant that she rest, Venus," Jupiter cautioned. "Not that I can tell you what to do, but I don't think it's a very good idea to right now. We're all very distraught over this and I understand-"

"Why ever not?" Venus interrupted. Her tone was as sharp as a blade. "We're all distraught, but she's the reason we're like this now." Her eyes was hard and unforgiving, but Jupiter and Mercury were the only ones who could see this. They both knew Venus had been avoiding Mars since the other's retrieval. No one was more shocked to discover Mars on Earth than Venus, even if she was the one who thought to look. Of all the people in the universe, Venus and Mars had always been so close it was hard to imagine the second-in-command not telling their leader what she had planned to do. Laws and treaties, fate and destiny were not what bound those two, but friendship, trust, and habits drilled into them since they were foretold to take their posts.

The two women had always been as close as sisters, and dearer than friends. It must have been harder for Venus than for anyone else that this had happened. The way it had happened had certainly not helped anyone cope. Jupiter knew this but thinking of how complicated the next few days were going to continue to be just wearied her. No one dared to raise any questions or worries they themselves had for the Kings of Earth, much less the Prince. Luna had already scheduled back-to-back meetings, debriefing and analyzing the events that had led up to this debacle. They were only given brief times of rest while the Counselors of the Lady Queen gathered intelligence. It rarely even felt like rest at all. They were certainly waiting for Mars to recover, so that she may be a somewhat useful witness to the incidents that occurred, but they weren't going to wait around to start making decisions. The meetings had only abraded their already raw nerves, and this was not the time for confrontations before everyone was forced back into the closed quarters within the Hall of Acients again. Nowadays they always seemed to be operating with too little information and even less respite.

A part of her was glad though, for repose left her to her thoughts.

She shouldn't, but every time she had too time to be still, Jupiter found herself worrying. Sometimes, when she wasn't careful, she thought of the Kings of Earth. She even thought of Lord Nephrite, who she had rarely ever had a fond thought for. He was down there and they had parted on better terms than they had started, which was something... unexpected. She was only beginning to like him _a little_, so it was only natural that she worried... a little.

He had always been such a churlish and prickly man. Most of the time she couldn't stand him and only sometimes did she see the loyalty and warmth beneath the disdain he'd shown her for quite some time. It had been so exhausting to deal with him at first, and despite being known as the most amiable girl in court, she had once been so irate with him that she had hurled a very expansive vase at his head. Well, at least her aim had always been rather deadly and even Lord Nephrite, bleeding head and all, could not deny that (even if he denied the fact that he _absolutely_ deserved it).

Lord Jadeite certainly had been the most approachable of the four, and now he was also very certainly dead. The man had once helped her locate a missing glove after she had a rather unfortunate altercation with a very rude princeling from her own planet. It had been the most trivial of things to bother an ambassador of Earth, but he had suddenly appeared at her arm and asked if she needed aid. He was rather good at that.

She had already been distressed that evening. It had all been such a horrendous ordeal, especially after having her nerves worn thin already by an argument concerning Lunarian court politics with Lord Nephrite earlier. At that moment, when Lord Jadeite had come to her aid, all she had wanted to do was to just sit down in the middle of the ballroom and give herself a good pity cry.

Venus and Mars had been waylaid with the often appalling responsibility of fending off all too-eager suitors from the Princess Serenity. Mercury was off duty that evening and had already wisely slipped away, at the very first opportunity the other could. Jupiter had suddenly found herself rather alone in that ballroom, unexpectedly not enjoying it the way she had assumed that she would. And then Lord Jadeite, quite like a rather bright and dashing knight, had appeared at her elbow and alerted her that perhaps he could be of service. He had been a rather attentive escort, and though the ordeal had been short, she was in far better spirits after it was over.

She might have even called him a friend, despite her rather nasty luck with men.

Lord Jadeite, of course, had long proven his worth to her in other ways. She had known him mostly through the long, droning hours of negotiations that she was forced to stand through with the others. She knew he was good at reading the minds of others, a skill that certainly hadn't sat very well with her for quite some time.

Of course, this was not public knowledge, and their leader, Venus, was so good at reading people that she might as well be able to read minds - and Mars was not that far behind on intuition alone. Yet, there was something very disconcerting, if not downright embarrassing, about finding Lord Jadeite giving her several very private smiles during the middle of a few especially boring meetings and catching her in the middle of day-dreaming. They were mostly innocent ones about running through the wide-opened fields from her childhood or a rather delicious recipe she was rehashing in her mind to try out. However, during the very first week the Kings and their Prince had arrived, she had quite a mortifying experience with his rather obscure talent.

She had been imagining which of the ambassadors of Earth had a nicer set of buttocks, considering that Venus had slyly insinuated to her earlier that she thought Prince Endymion's was the nicest (and the most firm). Jupiter hadn't dared ask Venus how she knew this, though she was certain she didn't want to know anyway. She was being rather diplomatic about the whole thing really, trying to imagine how they had looked walking in front of her earlier, before she concluded that the Kings all had very nicely shaped behinds and she just couldn't decide from the information that she was given whose was better.

This pleasant train of thought was brutally derailed, rather quickly, when her wondering eyes met Lord Jadeite's own. Jupiter didn't think she had ever turned so red in the middle of a meeting in her life (and possibly never again, if she could help it) when she realized what exactly she had been thinking (and who exactly had heard it!). She had felt all the blood rushing to her head so fast that she literally felt faint and even swayed a little on her feet. Mars had shot her a rather nasty warning stare for the obvious state of embarrassment she was in while Venus had smiled at her with such indulgent smugness that Jupiter, having really done nothing wrong at this point, vividly imagined herself being impaled by a very nice and long Jovian spear to end her misery. Well, that thought just didn't end well for her either, and she turned even redder as time went on. All three of them had ended up witnessing Lord Jadeite's quirking eyebrow, an amused stare that turned into a rather difficult expression - where upon he looked like he was in quite a bit of pain (probably from trying hard not to laugh at her in front of everyone else!) - during the whole ordeal.

Needless to say, from then on, Jupiter learned to recite many things in her own native tongue and to picture absolutely nothing. Long poems about brave gladiators and even longer treaties about the Silver Alliance were always being recited in his presence in one of the three official Jovian languages, no less. She even cornered Mercury in her desperation to memorize things that made absolutely no sense to even herself, like the difficult classes of astronomy and alchemy that she had never paid much attention to in her youth. Hence forth, only when she was very careless, was she even able to think of anything remotely understandable to an Earthling during those long meetings.

Since discovering Lord Jadeite's rather violent demise, Jupiter found herself remembering these inconsequential meetings long ago. She remembered how she had been sure he would share her humiliating moment with Nephrite and that she would end up hating both of them (right after she poisoned them, that is). Naturally, since Nephrite didn't like her in the first place, he would never let her live this one down! Yet, when Venus had laughingly dragged her to their meeting place, while Mars scolded her and pushed her all the way there, she found herself confronted by a surly King who treated her no different than with his usual high-handedness. She had been wound up so tight that even Lord Nephrite had barked at her with an exasperated sigh, "Just what the hell is wrong with you now?"

Only then did she realize that Lord Jadeite had not spoken a word of it. She was quite bewildered by this, and for quite a few private interactions she's had with him after, she had not been able to think of anything else except that he would bring that horrifying moment up again. She knew he could hear such worries as clearly as if she had shouted to the world her anxieties, but she couldn't help but think on it more and more the longer she spent time in his presence. Yet, not even in passing, not even to acknowledge her insecurities, or tease her about her imaginations did he make one passing remark about it. And slowly, slowly Jupiter learned that Lord Jadeite, with his rare smiles and courteous actions, respected the privacy of other's thoughts, whether or not he could hear it was not something he could help.

Jupiter thought about all that she learned about the Kings and their Prince Endymion when they had come, she thought about the hot-headed man who had a cutting wit but a warm touch. She thought about how Lord Nephrite would react to the news of one of their own passing, if he didn't already learn of it. Jupiter was only starting to like him when he left, and even if she understood nothing about the man she was forced to escort for a few weeks every year (for the last several years), she did understand loyalty and friendship. She didn't know why she cared, not when the two of them argued more than they got along, but she could sympathize even if she rarely liked the hot-tempered man. Lord Nephrite and Lord Jadeite had been very close too, they were all very close, like the Senshi were close to each other. Yet, those two seemed not just comrades in arms that trusted each other with their lives on the battlefield, but genuine friends that laughed together and fought each other, sometimes ribbing one another with private jokes and knowing looks.

Jupiter shuddered to think how she would have reacted if Mars had been the one they had found dead beside Lord Jadeite's corpse instead. Selfishly, even though it was nothing to be happy about, she was glad it wasn't Mars. She was glad it hadn't been one of them down there in that unknown place, dead for an unknown reason. She was glad it wasn't really her in Lord Nephrite's shoes, or any of the shoes of those who had to say goodbye to a loved one when Lord Jadeite passed on.

She was glad that the small pang of loss at Lord Jadeite's passing was a pang and not a wound she couldn't close...

_Beset's eyes had glowed like burning coals on her hollowed face, as if all the life lived only in those eyes now._

Jupiter shuddered again at the memory. She had never really witnessed death before. At least, not so close. She had been the one charged with the task of bringing Mars back, and having seen it in the midst of her task, she never wished to see it again. She had always assumed that she would die in her sleep, like the last Senshi to hold her post, and the one before that. She never thought there was another option, another choice, really. She knew being a Senshi entailed danger, and it had always been a thrilling concept before - risking one's life for love and honor. It had never been _real_. And now, seeing and smelling the terrible thing was an experience she never wished to repeat again.

Of course she'd read about it. She had read about wars and strategy, learned and listened to bloody ballads and watched illusionary plays about the fall of the Solarian civilization, and the devastating wars that had killed much of the outer planets, turning most of them into deserted and uninhabitable posts that only Senshi could watch over. But there was something very different between the abstract concept and the actual evidence. Only now did she rethink the fact that she may have reacted too harshly to Lord Nephrite's criticism of them when they had first met. She had just began a tentative truce with him before his departure too, and Jupiter had always thought him rather good-looking - that is before his big mouth ruined the effect. But now she wondered if he had not been right about them. They would not be prepared to go to war with anyone, really, even if it included a race as technologically and as magically ill-equipped as Earth.

Venus shifted and her actions caused Jupiter to look up sharply, abruptly coming back to the dead silence in the room. She studied her leader and grimly made no protest when Venus released her no-longer trembling hands. She could not say anything to that clenched jawed look on Venus' face. She wanted to protest but it would only fall onto deaf ears. Jupiter knew this, for she was quickly learning a lot more about her friends from the last three days than she'd ever learned about them in the last decade spent in their presence. She opened her mouth to protest, out of habit, wanting to warn Venus of the fleeting and alien madness that had flitted across a familiar face, but stopped herself at the last minute. Venus would fail to understand it unless she saw it for herself. It was a sad realization, but no less true. And she foresaw her leader's reaction should she push for the other to stay, a reaction that terrified her enough to still her tongue.

"I will go talk to her," Venus announced, voice hard as granite, in case someone else decided to advise her otherwise. Jupiter could not look at her leader then, for fear of what her own face would reveal. Mercury did not even turn her head. Venus didn't notice any of this, she had already moved towards the doors that Mercury had entered from earlier and didn't turn back to observe the defeated slump in Jupiter's shoulders or the absent, vacant stare Mercury was giving to the view outside the window.

"Don't," Jupiter finally said weakly after the doors had closed and silence fell upon the two remaining. She had not watched Venus leave and she regretted that she only had the courage to voice the word lodged in her throat once it could no longer be heard. Yet, even in her own ears, they lacked conviction.

* * *

Whatever Venus had thought she would face, this was probably not it.

Mars sat regally at her dressing mirror, brushing out her hair and humming a song. The familiar long strokes she utilised to straighten her locks were the same graceful movements Venus often remembered waking to see when they had been younger and prone to sudden urges of slumber parties in each other's rooms. Once, the four of them had crammed into Mars' large bed because the Martian had been adamant not to comply with her suggested sleeping arrangements, period.

"Well," Venus remembered commenting to her friend then, "if the Martian won't come to Venus, Venus will go to the Martian!"

Venus certainly regretted her decision later on, when Jupiter had accidentally kicked her out of bed early that morning and rudely awakened her from her sleep. She remembered groggily struggling to sit up from the floor and the amused face that greeted her at that very vanity, years ago. It was first time she had heard Mars laugh, and it had been... _enchanting_.

"Beset," the red-haired girl had told her while handing her a sword, months later. They had just started learning to handle the weapon, having moved on from throwing knives. There had been a party to celebrate the coming of the New Year and it had been her first present, ever really.

"You named the sword?" Venus remembered asking incredulously, after unwrapping the surprise. She couldn't picture Mars as someone who gave out pet names to anything, not even to sharp and pointy killing things. She had just been so overwhelmed and touched by the gift, for she had read that Martians took gift giving very seriously, especially those concerning weapons.

It had been the first sword she had ever owned.

"Idiot," Mars had said fondly through a chuckle but didn't correct her. It took her a week to figure it out. It had stopped Venus dead in her tracks, right in the midst of training. She was hit by the sudden epiphany that the strange name was not the name of her new sword but the name of her friend. Jupiter, seeing an opening, had promptly followed that example with a rather painful and well aimed punch. She was given a rather nasty black-eye to go with her bruised pride.

Of course she was pissed. She hunted Mars down for not being straight-forward about such an important matter and then promptly got into a brawl with the other in the west wing of the palace. She was more than annoyed for being distracted during practice and she wanted someone else to pay for the glaringly obvious sign of her inattention. By the smug smile Mars had given her at the end of that fight, even though they were both in no shape at all for smiling, Venus thought the other may have used those powers of premonition for a far less noble purpose than anyone suspected.

Good thing Martians didn't mind a good fight, especially if it proved something...

They were truly friends after that. It was a new and strange experience for the both of them. They had pledged their loyalties to each other beneath the Lunar Willow that Mars loved and Venus admired.

She had trouble thinking of Mars as a Beset for the longest time though. She was so used to the other just being Mars. Yet, once in awhile, like this moment, for example, she couldn't bring herself to use the title they all went by. Not when it hit so close to home.

Mars paused for only a moment when Venus walked up to the other's only sitting chair in the room. The red-haired woman didn't bother look up however, or even acknowledge her friend was there. Only when Venus looked through the mirror did she see the white bandages that bound the hands of Mars. The other woman had always been pale, but the red of her hair was gleaming and it made the bandages stand out more. Venus thought that Mars must have bathed, despite her own expectations to see a very disorderly and disturbed woman from the reactions she had seen on Jupiter's face. Yet, here was the Mars that she was used to, this was who she had wanted to see and who she remembered the other being before this whole fiasco.

For a moment, Venus wondered if she had simply dreamt the whole thing up. She felt the hope fill her up, that she had simply experienced a nightmare and she was there again to tell Mars what she had trouble telling anyone else. They would laugh about her crazy imagination and Mars would cross the room, touch her cheek, and promise her that she could stay the night if it would soothe her.

And yet, while Venus watched her friend, she knew that was not it. Knowing this, she felt even more betrayed by the seeming disguise. The languid strokes that used to soothe her when she watched now irritated her to no end. The soft sounding hum of a whimsical song was just another facade of a lie already exposed.

Did Mars not trust her with what the other really felt? Even Jupiter had seen the other's falling apart but why was Venus not allowed? Were they no longer friends? Could she no longer think of this woman as one closer than a sister?

All along, had she been the only one who thought this way?

The white bandages around the other's hands seemed to mock her silently for her ignorance. Venus clenched her own into fists and blanked her face. "Why did you go?" she asked quietly, forcing herself to stay calm and raising her chin slightly. Mars didn't even pause again, didn't even bother to answer her. "You know we can't go to Earth right now when the negotiations are so tentative. Even the Princess has been following the rules." No reaction. "What the hell were you thinking?" Venus demanded, losing her cool when the tune of the song got on her nerves.

Mars pulled the brush slowly through her hair one last time. She stopped humming to look at it with a curiosity on her face that was strange considering Venus was still panting angrily in the mirror behind her. Then the very soft song on her breath resumed. Venus opened her mouth, her anger and annoyance fueled by the other's obvious lack of care, but Mars glanced up again.

Venus froze. For all the time she had known her dearest friend, she had never seen the other look at her in that way before. She comprehended the sudden burning hot rage that now lived in a stranger's face, one that overshadowed her own devastated feelings. Mars rose and turned to her then and slowly, in her usual stately manner but far slower, she drifted to Venus. Mars had never walked like that before, as if she was half falling and half gliding, stopping so close to the blond that they just looked at each other for a very long time. The red-haired woman's cheekbones looked sharper than ever. The shadows beneath was dark and her whole face looked drawn. And yet, her eyes glittered. The rage was now a shimmer and not the burning wild-fire that had the ability to seal her lips like hot wax. "You shouldn't have come," Mars finally told her. "I'm not ready to see you."

"But-" she dared to try.

Her words were cut off as the other turned away. She had barely caught a glimpse of the silent snarl, but the expression was as foreign as the current situation and no less deadly than the insanity that Mars had carried earlier in the sparks of her eyes. With one smooth, practiced motion, the red-haired woman lifted her arm and then hurled the brush at the mirror with such a force that it was impaled into the wall behind it. The crashing sound of shattered glass made Venus jump in a start. Slivers of their reflections rained down to the floor, showering the ground. She could see her friend's shoulders shaking with another force now, as if the other was trying to draw in air after a long, hard run. Then those shoulders tensed once before smoothing into a relaxed line of skillfully suppressed emotions that she had only glimpsed a terrifying moment of.

A burning enimity lit those eyes into rubies and made them gleam mad and flat like a monster's. She had only ever seen that impassive face and those expressive lips scowl at her or thin in displeasure, but never quite like this. Not even in passing. There was also a hint of a cruel twist there she had never before encountered until today. She was tempted to step back, but she felt as if she was rooted to her spot in that familiar room that was suddenly more alien a place than Earth could ever be, or any other planet for that matter.

"You should go," Mars said quietly. "I don't want you to see me like this," she added, almost absent-mindedly, as if her thoughts had already moved on. Venus nodded slowly, afraid her voice would break the calm as she turned to go and knowing Mars would not be able to see her agreement. She paused at the door, only then noticing the dents by the entrance. The bloody streaks had darkened already along the jagged edges and Venus felt her hand shake as she reached for the lever to let herself out. This must have been why Mars had her hand bandaged and, perhaps, it would explain why Jupiter had been so rattled.

There was a madness that lived inside of her friend that had never been there before. It was an aimless bitterness, black and abysmal. It burned cold into the night and made those warm, kind eyes glitter hard and lifeless. It looked out through Mars with a quiet hatred that seemed bigger than a body could hold. It leaked out like poison and vibrated the very air around the Senshi that stood so alone and still in that room.

Venus couldn't look back. She was half afraid she would say something wrong and more afraid she would say what she felt. "I'm sorry, Beset," Venus finally said softly before she closed the door. She still hesitated on the other's name. Still was unsure of the foreign syllables that once brought amusement into those eyes that were no longer familiar.

It was her apology for not being able to do anything in the face of a pain she had never realized could live so vividly in the eyes of someone she loved. It was her apology for having thought she knew all there was to know about Beset, the girl who had once cut her own hand on their first blade and clasped their wounds together to bind their destinies. It was her apology for never realizing how hard Mars had tried, had held her when she had felt most alone, and how she wasn't able to return the favor now.

Venus walked a few feet from the closed doors that separated her from her closest friend and collapsed against the wall when she could go no further. She knew she needed to call the healers or the servants, someone to clean the mess she's left behind. Yet, her legs felt like liquid and would not obey her, while her voice felt as if it had fled her completely. She had thought she understood grief and pain, had understood the meaning of being a leader and the strength needed to be a friend. Venus slid down that wall and clutched her hands to her useless throat that couldn't produce any noise of comfort or sound any alarms of pain. She felt the silent, helpless tears slide down her cheeks, tears that she had not the courage to shed in that room full of edges and blood already spilt. She had wanted to say that it was over now, that they couldn't go back in time, and that there were other, more important things they needed to focus on...

And yet, she had not been able to utter a single word of it.

She had been wrong and Jupiter had been right. It had not been Mars who was not ready to face her, it was she who was not yet ready to face Mars. It was not over now, it was just beginning. They could not go back in time, and there were other, more important things they needed to focus on, but how could she say it to Beset's face that had looked at her with such bleak intensity. How could she say it when she could not understand even a small sliver of the pain that the other was going through, when she had not even realized how much Beset must have felt for Lord Jadeite to bring this about...

All this time, it was really she who had turned into a friend in name only.

"_Even knowing the future, we can still hope._" Beset herself had told Venus once. Mars had touched their hands together, mingling their blood while Venus kissed the other's cheek. She wondered then, if that girl had known of the heartbreak that awaited her in the future or the uselessness of promises made beneath magical wishing trees. "_What are you afraid of? You're the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and if not that, at least you are her defender, her champion. Shouldn't you be a bit more of a romantic?_" her friend had teased her when she had been too adamant to admit even liking the Lord Kunzite. Usually she would have jested about his physique or his prowess as a lover, usually she would have played seductress or bragged of her conquests - in a non-vulgar way, of course. Even then, perhaps Beset had already seen what her heart had truly wanted, better than she had been at facing the treacherous truth of its desires.

If she had been true to herself, or to her friend, would Mars have told her? Would she have known that she was not the only one the other cared about? Would she have been able to deal with knowing that another may have been gifted with the knowledge of a dear friend's name?

Venus silently cried, trembling hands against her neck and her arm. Tears soaked her dress as she hunched over her knees, unable to soothe the pain beyond the wall that supported her now. Unable, really, to even help herself. In the end, all she really wanted was to help the person who had held her hand, who had told her a true name beyond titles and duties, and had once laughed, pulling her close and calling her sister.

To that woman, far from the reaches of her arms and her words, Venus felt utterly defeated.

* * *

Lady Beryl scowled rather unbecomingly at her black orb. The child had obviously gone insane, from what little she had observed, but that uncanny intuition... The mirror had been a rather nice medium, she had even contemplated using it and tormenting the alien girl with images of her dead lover. After all, she couldn't be known to treat her enemies with mercy now, could she?

And yet, when that girl had so accurately hurled that silver brush...

Well, perhaps she should be a little more careful. After all, she shouldn't underestimate them, no matter how inexperienced and unprepared they were for the war she would bring to their doorsteps. There really was no other way to get to the powers she sought, and it was rather unfortunate that she would have to stomp on the hearts of a few star-crossed lovers and inexperienced children to get to what she really wanted.

At such thoughts, she thought of the little bitch who so easily waylaid the wondering attentions of her Prince. Lady Beryl snarled, her beautiful face turning rather ugly as her nails clutched at the arm-rests of her throne. Why was she even bothering to feel pity for these despicable beings?

She sighed, letting the intense jealousy pass. It wouldn't do to make herself too much of a villain, after all. She hadn't set out for that, only to be strong enough to take what she wanted. What she deserved, actually.

She rose instead, spilling red and purple down onto the floor as she crossed it to the stone slab that nursed the shadow of a man. He would soon be her own, as all the others would. But he would be the first, a ripe prize that had not been too easy to pluck. Lady Beryl's lips smoothed into a seductive smile as she trailed one finger along the cocoon. She was a very patient woman, she had to learn to be one to get where she was now and, of course, where she will be later.

The power Metallia promised her was only a part of her own plans, for the old witch that bestowed her with an amplifier to her own gifts was a rather nasty creature. She wouldn't want to turn out like that, so besotted with power that she would fail to enjoy it when she got her hands around it. She would not turn a blind eye to life, or to love, for that matter.

She smiled playfully, turning away as she went back to her orb and called upon the face and figure of a Prince. "Soon," she promised him. It will not just be a glass ball that I get to see and touch your lovely features, or imagine your hand on my cheek. Soon, it will not just be a small miracle beside a lake, your strong hand around my weak ankle.

Lady Beryl glanced at the cocoon behind her. She will make sure Prince Endymion was not alone, for he loved his Kings so well. She would build him a kingdom and rule by his side, always surrounding him with the most trustworthy of servants. They would be equals and they would be able to bring peace to the people of Earth. She would do all this for him without the help of alien beings who would never understand or love their planet the way they love their planet. She would do all this with no strings attached, for that was the meaning of love.

Ah, but the Moon would only trap the Earth with their talks of peace and their demands for alliances. They would not be able to make Earth all that it could be. Instead, they would forever live only in the shadows of the clossus that was other alien civilizations. They would lose all that made them the people of Earth, and only for a few fancy trinkets such as the fragile promise of peace. All that the Moon offered them were ephemeral things they could live without, and Lady Beryl was wise to the ways of promises and treaties. She had seen them broken countless times, and had, in fact, broken a few of them herself.

It was all rather easy when you were the stronger.

No, she would never allow Earth to fall victim to such an uneasy truce. They had everything to lose to such _deals_ with the Silver Alliance, but what she wanted was that they have everything to gain. "I can promise you that, my love," Lady Beryl vowed with her velvet voice of reason as she smiled into his unseeing eyes. "After all, my darling Endymion, someone must make sure that you never betray your _true_ heart."

* * *

**_TBC._**

_For sm-monthly LJ community challenge, theme 13: Betrayal._


	3. the searching

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters. They are the creations of Naoko Takeuchi, based entirely on her manga.

* * *

_Mneme - Lady Mercury  
Emmerich - Lord Zoicite  
Beset - Lady Mars_

* * *

**the feel of her name**

___My lover's gone  
I know that kiss will be my last  
no more his song  
the tune upon his lips has passed  
I sing alonef  
while I watch the ocean_

-My Lover's Gone by Dido

* * *

**3. _the searching_**

* * *

Mercury shut the screen and sighed deeply. She put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes with her fingers. The night seemed to stretch before her in a languid sprawl, but she had no time for sleep. She had been charged with the task of finding what had caused the death of the late Lord Jadeite, and though she was one of the many looking into this, she was probably one of the very few with the much needed clearance to access the Alliance database. Time was short and there just wasn't enough of it for what needed to be done.

"Until this mystery is solved, we cannot open communications with Earth," Counselor Luna's face had been hard and no one argued with her on this. Mercury found herself often disagreeing with the policies they were using to deal with the latest tragedies, but she had nothing to support her except a feeling of dread. Unlike Mars, who relied on her intuitions, Mercury could not speak without hard evidence to present. As much as she hated the decision, she could not ask the Counselors or anyone else to support her when all she had to go on was a feeling.

After all, the gods did not touch her with the unseen powers, but with a sharp cut mind that could discover the truth so that all could see it for what it was.

Yet, she was so exhausted that time seemed to move so much slower for her, even though she knew this was not so. The sands were slipping through the glass and even if she felt, in the darkness, the hours seeming to stretch like years, it was all just an illusion. A sometimes dangerous misimpression that was much like the world they lived in, here on the Moon. She had experienced how ephemeral her feelings and her perceptions were. Often times, she found herself once more in the light that spilled out into the skies. The sudden realization of mornings when she had been sure that she had only put one hand down next to the pages of knowledge, trying to delve and decipher into contents that were as fascinating as it was arcane, was something that was disconcerting at best.

For the last few hours, she had been visiting the ancient writings from the people of Mars. There were many stories, legends and myth and prophecies they had recorded of what they foresaw in the future of the Silver Alliance. Her own planet had soon followed with detailed analysis of the consequences of the actions of her Lady Queen and the political machinations driving the negotiations at the time. There were the stories from Uranus and Neptune, Pluto and Saturn, but they were mostly more of the histories that people took to heart as lessons of what could happen if peace did not reign supreme. One or two of the text were even from the lost Solarian civilization. Those stories gave her a headache just to translate, but luckily, she had hers and the main computer working over time to get her much of the information she needed.

There were even stories of Venus, thought to be the origins of the Queens Selenity.

Pages upon pages of text that she had never imagined, even in all her wonderings through the books of the Alliance Libraries, or the random inquiries she had made to the Alliance database before this debacle had left her with just enough excitement to keep awake. The wings of texts and ancient scrolls lay waiting for her to read and she wished that her search was not so filled with dread. Yet, even she took note of the ancient texts from the Sun, for their astronomers have noted its findings that had only had a small section in the daily reports made to the Queen. They had been observing the sudden spike of activity there, even felt an ancient evil stirring, but these things had been so brief and there had been so many other things that needed their attention that only now did they truly take notice. But negotiations with Earth was at its most crucial moments too, and soon, they would finally be able to bridge the last long-standing gap between them and the people of Earth.

Mercury sighed as she shifted through the notes. Her eyes focused on several details in the growing document with increasing unease. Her index finger tapped against the curled pages in her hand before she turned away to flick open her small computer. The keys came alive at her touch as she highlighted the passages she wanted analyzed with her own findings.

The specific aspects that the Councelors have given her concerning the death of the King and the conditions of his corpse were just the tip of a long list of worries she had already found. She had hesitated several times over certain parts of the passage that filled her with both curiosity and dread. Turning the page absent-mindedly, she suddenly winced as the sharp edge of the page cut open her finger. She raised it to her lip, pausing at the last second as she looked down at the small wound, turning into a line of red beneath her observations.

"Let me give you the magick kiss," Lord Zoicite's voice rang in her ear. Mercury blinked, a blush coloring her cheeks at the memory. It had been so vivid. For a moment she even thought she had faintly smelled leather and soap, and felt the phantom warmth of his hand grasping her own.

"I didn't know you had the healer's touch," she had remarked naively, surprised by his actions and his words. She had been much redder then, for she was so rarely touched by anyone much less the opposite sex. He had, after all, also mentioned a kiss...

Lord Zoicite had shot her a wink and a slow, smug smirk. She was about to pull her hand away, suddenly suspicious that he was only teasing her. But he had already caught her wounded digit with his lips and at her wide-eyed surprise, he had gently nipped it. Mercury remembered snatching her hand away as if it was on fire, clutching it to her breast and nearly slamming herself against a wall in her effort to put more distance between them. In the process of all this, she had knocked over a stack of books but was too shocked, if not a bit frightened, to straighten the mess she left.

"Oh!" she had gasped. She was unsure whether it had been due to the kiss or to her own clumsiness that made the air seem to have escaped from her lungs and refused to return. The gravity of the Moon was certainly less than that of her own planet, and sometimes she underestimated her own strength.

Lord Zoicite had laughed at her, delighted by her reactions. He ended up being the one to bend down, cleaning up the scattered disarray as she continued to edge away from him as if he were a dangerous beast that had escaped into the library. She didn't think he understood then, and not until much later, just how uncomfortable he made her. With any other Senshi, perhaps he would have had more success with his flirtations.

Granted, Mars would have had no problem with coldly rejecting him flat out, and the woman had her aloof disdain down so well that the men at court feared her as much as they admired her. Venus would have out done him, seeing Lord Zoicite's teasing as a goad or a challenge to see who had more charm. As suave as he was, Mercury would have side with her leader when it came to the game of hearts. Of them all, it would be Jupiter who would have been flattered by the attention, and Lord Zoicite would have stopped rather quickly in his advances because of the lack of resistance. Her friend was also exceedingly serious about such things, easily falling for a pretty face and a strong set of shoulders. Mercury was glad it was not Jupiter. After all, the Jovian had the worst luck with men and she didn't need to add Lord Zoicite to that list of disasters.

She didn't enjoy being the victim of his vanity either, though he must have thought himself exceedingly charming due to her violent reactions to him.

Mercury was a bit annoyed with herself, but she had never been very good with people, especially men. The other Senshi got along with her, and she called them friends, but she rarely interacted with anyone outside of the Lady Queen's most trusted circle. The only one she could really talk to was the Counselor Luna, and even then she had to watch herself because of protocols. They were still friends, though the relationship had started from a case of mistaken identity. Mercury had, at first, discovered Luna in her feline form. The counselor had been scouting the young children that were to be sworn in as Senshi, and she had immediately taken a liking to the cat.

She always did do better with animals than humans.

Mercury rubbed at her eyes again. She was so exhausted, but she forced herself not to think about it as she set down her visor. Venus had been wired since they took note that Mars had not shown up at their usual meeting, and her commander had forced them all to stay up with her as they had scoured the palace when Mars remained missing for the rest of the day. By the second day Venus had ordered her to scan the Moon for the missing Sailor Senshi, and when the day gave way to night any thoughts of sleep had fled her. Her leader was the one who finally checked the Observation Room, when they had exhausted all the possibilities concerning the local areas. To say she was surprised to discover Mars had travelled to the Earth would be an understatement. She had always thought of Mars as one of the more reliable and level-headed of the group, and though they were not the greatest of friends, she trusted the other with her life. To have made such a reckless decision so suddenly, Mercury wondered what had caused such a thing.

She did not understand it all too well herself, at least that was what she told herself. She was logically worried about the Kings, and if Lord Zoicite in particular came to mind more often than the rest these last few hours, it was simply because she knew him better. They had become friends, after all. Since the time they had caught each other off-guard outside of the palace walls, they had started a tentative relationship of sorts.

It had been one particularly slow afternoon that had led her to find Lord Zoicite out in the market place. She rarely went into the city, but she sometimes travelled there without informing the other Senshi. Mercury didn't really enjoy company, but sometimes she missed the cramped spaces of her own planet and the market place was a great place to find rare books that were not even available within the great Library. They were books mostly on travel and adventure, battered and dirt cheap. Mercury loved them and she had a hard time confessing such an interest to anyone she knew, but then again, no one had ever asked.

She couldn't travel to the places she read about at her own leisure, so she would go to the bazaar whenever her duties slackened enough to allow her the time. The trip itself had become a hobby, the process of looking for beat up journals detailing these rare, long journeys to other planets were all picked up with eager hands. It was, of course, much more difficult to locate the outer planets now that they were reduced to mere outposts on the edges of the universe, but sometimes she would find old, worn books that no one had looked at for decades or centuries, waiting for her to find them. It was what made these stories so fascinating and fantastical, and it made finding them her own little challenge. The gruelling voyages detailed in cramped handwrittings of every imaginable language was a treat to be savored. They were not always great writers, these travelors of far and distant places, but they didn't always need to be.

Unexpected things were out there, waiting for her to discover them, and the market was full of such things. That day, it ended up being Lord Zoicite that she found, carrying Lunarian street children on his shoulders and having a few hanging around his waist. He had passed her by just as she had turned away from a stall of mewling Martian cats, but they recognized one another right away. "You!" they had spoken at the same time in surprise, fingers pointing accusingly.

Her one hand had tightened around her treasured journal (this one said to be from a travelor to Pluto!) and she had feared he might have found her out, while her mind was curious about why he was even there. "What-" they both started and then she cut herself off with a blush and he had pulled back, his face also slightly pink. Perhaps they were both found out by the other.

"Who's the pretty lady?" the child on Lord Zoicite's shoulder asked curiously.

"Is she your betrothed?" another inquired.

They both turned red at the very idea. "No!"

The children didn't look very convinced at the unified denial. And despite their protests, they both ended up spending the afternoon on the outskirts of town, playing Lunarian children's games. Some of those games were reminescent of her own childhood games, but most of them were more similar to the games the children on Venus played than anywhere else.

For the first time, Mercury saw the arrogant features gentle into warm smiles and gay laughter. Lord Zoicite had a very long and feminine face and most cultures would probably have called him beautiful, but to Mercury, he was all sharp edges and sharper words. His eyes seemed like a reflection, very much a verdant mirror of the world, though what it reflected may not always be accurate. He was cold and many times, when she gazed into those eyes full of jagged things, she wondered what it was that he trying to keep away.

Mercury had spent her whole life with beautiful, powerful women, be it on the Moon or back home on Mercury. She knew that beauty, many times, was like an icy wall. It kept out the world and isolated the one who wore a face that only the outside could appreciate. It could ugly the soul, and break hearts without trying. It did not move her as much as it would have in her youth, when she had been fascinated with all things rare and different, exotic and pleasing.

Yet, with these children, he never hesitated to get down to the ground and play with them until dirt smudged his skin and mud ruined his clothes. Only then, with a brown stain beneath his cheekbone and a smile that left fine lines in the corners of his eyes did Mercury think that she could no longer ignore his radiance. His smooth face had told her before that he was not a man accustomed to smiling, but when he did his visage became one that she could not look away from.

For all the time she has known him, he had seemed like a lifeless sculpture that she couldn't relate to or appreciate outside of its fine craftsmanship. But here, he was a man who seemed to carry more than the same cold disdain that all the Kings had radiated when they had first come to the Moon. It must have been at the young Prince Endymion's urgings, for he was the only one opened himself to the ideals of the Silver Alliance and the people that lived there.

Even then, their Lady Queen had deliberately kept their Princess out of sight for fear of the prophecies she was bringing to life. She had been warned before of the fate of their young charge since Princess Serenity's birth. If they could solidify these negotiations, then Princess Serenity would be able to set foot on Earth without fear of persecution or the terrible curse put upon her as a babe. They would no longer have to hide or be forbidden from studying a world more alive than any other in the universe. Finally, with curious hands and hungry eyes, she may be able to see and touch and smell and taste the things she had only read about in battered journals and forgotten excerpts. She would be able to do more than just meet the men of Earth and experience the many wonders she had only been able to view through the screens of the Observation Room.

"You look like you are in the middle of discovering a treasure," Lord Zoicite observed, his eyes on the book she clutched to her, interrupting her thoughts. She just continued to look at him, not quite sure how to respond, before looking down at her hands and quickly pulling the journal out of sight. She wasn't sure why but she was suddenly afraid of what thoughts he could see on her face. "I'm not Lord Jadeite, you know? I can't hear what's on your mind," he spoke in her silence. He sounded quite irate with her, though she admitted that she was acting a bit more rude than usual.

She blinked and continued to stare at the ground, this time feeling a bit guilty. "You don't need to read minds to guess at someone's thoughts," she said softly, thinking of Venus with her knowing looks and Mars with her inuitions.

She wasn't sure how but awkwardly they ended up together. Perhaps it was the laughing children who begged her to join them, or the fact that she had already been more than a bit graceless in dealing with this meeting. It was some time past before she needed to speak to him again, but eventually, even she couldn't ignore the fact that her unsociable skills might have insulted his easily smarted ego. He was rather sensitive to the social nuances that she had always been so terrible at. At first he asked all the questions, about the Moon and its social structures, about Mercury that made her happy and homesick, and eventually about the people at the palace. She ended up speculating a lot about Earth as she listened to his inquiries and watching his reactions to her answers, but she tried her best to always speak the truth of her own observations, at least with as much honesty as she could afford.

"I think it is you, my Lord, who has found a treasure," she said at last, quite out of the blue, observing him this time. She remembered the look he had on his face while he watched the children. He did not act like their meeting in the market when she noted his presence, there was not a trace of that unease at being discovered from earlier. She remembered his questions about poverty and the homeless, about those who lacked families and those who were enslaved. She had seen and read about the wars of Earth, and the orphans of those conflicts. She had heard in the meetings concerning the path that the Earth should take cover information on the conflicts that lived there, sometimes so very quietly in the hearts of her people. Perhaps, there were indeed things that even clever Lord Zoicite had not envisioned possible until now.

Or perhaps, there had been a lack of hope in him until now.

Lord Zoicite did not laugh this time, he had turned to her and reached across the distance that had always separated them and touched her cheek. It was the first time he had touched her since he kissed her injured finger in the library. This time though, his touch was more intimate and his face more vulnerable than any kiss or any words could have been. "Whatever you think of me, Lady Mercury, I mean what I say when I'm around you. You have already earned my deepest respect and I hope you never doubt that," he told her with his voice so earnest that she could not help but continue to look. In those eyes, she saw herself. His eyes, they were green and clear, unlike anything she had ever seen. From the reflection in them, she saw something essential that was him and could hide nothing in return. "You do not need to read minds to know I tell you the truth, either, Lady Mercury."

For the first time, she found him truly charming. She smiled at him and felt his hand tense against her skin, surprised to find that she had forgotten the intimate touch for a brief second as she looked up to him. She had seen him catch his breath, uncertain why she was sure that she was the cause of this. Unsure why this thought had pleased her.

"Definitely a mistress, at least!" one of the boys boasted, causing Mercury's cheek to overheat beneath Lord Zoicite's hand and her head to instinctively pull away. He let her go without any resistance, though it was she who regretted the loss. Instead, he had turned to give a devious wink to the children who squealed at this display, errupting into loud gossip and even louder speculations.

The children then tugged and pulled her to her feet, grasping onto her reluctant hands and parting her from Lord Zoisite. The girls had already started a game of tales and songs. The sound of their clapping hands, along with their childish voices, floated over grass and water. She was embarrassed but she joined them in their songs, remembering when she had been too young to be officially named a Senshi yet, and not invited to join the games of her peers. The songs and the optimism of the children surrounding her quickly allowed her to relax, forgetting her awkwardness as they continued. Soon, Lord Zoicite did as well. He had a surprisingly strong voice, lower than his features seemed to hint at. They laughed and sung allowing the wind to carry the enchanting sounds of joy over the fields, until the sky turned dark blue and the air turned cool. Their voices mingled with the distant sounds of waves from the sea before fading into retrospection.

Mercury blinked back the memory, hand on her own cheek. At the end of the evening, he had grasped her free hand tightly and kissed it while looking into her eyes with his unwavering and piercing gaze. It had only been a soft brush of lip against skin, despite the fierceness of his stare. Yet, there had been nothing friendly in his gaze and her breath had caught as she gazed back. For the first time the red on her cheeks were not from embarrassment or shame, but a different type of self-awareness. Her heart had skipped a beat as she clutched the book she discovered to her heart, feeling it flutter. The journal had ended up traveling with her on her own little adventure, unrecorded as it was and far more personal. Till this day, she treasured it not just for the story it told but the memory it held.

Only later, when she had dazedly stumbled into her room, did she wonder if this changed their relationship somehow. When she saw him again, he had been his usual self with teasing words and playful actions. She had been disappointed but it was short lived, for when their eyes had met, his held a softer look than ever before. Sometimes, when they spoke, she felt like she was being wrapped up in the secret of that meeting.

Now, she wondered, dread in her gut and eyes strained from the long hours of research, what he could be thinking of concerning Lord Jadeite's disappearance. She had seen how easily he was at jumping into conversations with his cutting wit, how much quicker he was at being angered for the injury of a fellow comrade or a bullied child. He was forever running to conclusions too, and his impatience was perhaps what made his company so unpredictable and even more exciting. She thought he was a somewhat clumsy King and an even clumsier protector, and perhaps that was why she had liked him beneath that thin veneer of pride and hauteur.

They were, after all, his effective shields against those who might discover how soft his underside really was...

Mercury thought of Mars then, of the pain in those eyes that had once held a happiness she recognized but had not had the courage or the thought to tell anyone else about. She had seen that look starting to show in her own eyes and had been afraid to trace its roots passed the reflection in the mirror. In the end, she had not been wrong when she told Lord Zoicite that one did not need powers to guess the thoughts of others. She silently moved away from the dark window with a view of the rising Earth. She thought of the pieces of herself she had recognized in Mars and shuddered, fearing the out-come of her own unknown future.

Fingers traced her bottom lip as she thought of Lord Zoicite's goodbye. A bittersweet smile lingered there as she turned away from the window, eyes falling on the painting she had started. She had been taught but only until she met Lord Zoicite did her childhood passion raise its head again. It was still unfinished, the vision of the future they had discussed that day by the edges of the Mare Serenitatis. She had never been exceptionally good at it, passed music and her artistic skills were rather limited. Since their meeting in the market and their impromptu meetings throughout the palace, she had suddenly been filled with a desire to try to put her imaginings on paper again, ones that were not yet memories but of the future.

"My name means memory," she had told him beneath the great archways. He had been unusually hesitant, his expression dubious when it had often been her expression and her role in their relationship. It was her answer to his question, when he had asked her if she would think of him when he was gone. She couldn't fathom why he would look so when he asked her such a thing, especially since they had said many goodbyes before this and would continue to say many more goodbyes for as long as she was Senshi and he was Shitennou. Still, she wanted him to know that it was not possible for her to forget. "Our people were the great recorders of histories and facts. We learn so that we may better the world one day. We remember, because that is what we do best and what we enjoy. No race than our own have been so good at looking back. And I wish..." she paused and sighed deeply. The foolish wish in her heart that she thought she had calmed and quieted seemed to come alive whenever she looked at him.

"You wish?" he asked, but did not push more than that, which was unlike him. He had been so much more humble that day than she had ever seen him. She wasn't sure if she liked it, for him to be so unsure.

She weighed the consequences in her head, and then the words she would say to best convey what she wanted. "I once wished," she amended, "that I would be able to help." She turned her face to the sudden warm breeze blowing through the grass, carrying the echo of lost moments on invisible wings. "More than just remembering, I want to help people _now_ and gain the ability to create hope for the future. My powers are not great, but with these small powers that I have been blessed with, I wanted to be of some use to this world, to your world." Her voice faltered as the same doubt that always plagued her assailed her again.

How? How could she help? What could she possibly do? All she had ever been taught was to record the passage of time. All she had ever been good at was but to delve into the past and rewind the hands of time. She had the command of water and ice, but they could not be used to water the crops when their purpose had always been to drown an enemy.

"Mneme," he said slowly, trying out her name for the first time. "So long as you remember this promise to yourself, as your name implies, it can be achieved. On Earth we believe we are given names to represent who we are in this world at our birth, but life is there for us to be more than the limits that names haven given to us. You have a gift, but it is not the only one you possess," he told her, his voice growing stronger with each passing moment. She had looked at him startled. It was the first time she had ever spoken this desire out loud, the first time anyone had asked, but he still surprised her with his confidence. He was brash, one of the many things she admired about him as much as it annoyed her to admit it, but his words gave her warmth and a view from a window she had never had the courage to look through. Perhaps, it was the same for him. Perhaps he got as much hope out of her as she did out of him.

"Yes, Emeric," she replied. Her hand flew to her mouth then in embarrassment, "I don't think I said that correctly at all," she admitted at last, hand still hovering over her mouth.

He had tilted his head at her with a clever twist of his mouth before he succumbed to chuckling at her expression. "No," he agreed through his laughter. "Not at all!" That was, perhaps, the first incident of many more heart-warming goodbyes to come. Yet with each passing farewell, she found it to grow harder instead of easier.

Wasn't that... a little _strange_?

Lady Mercury poured over the notes, letting go of the memory filled with warmth and a kind of sadness she could not yet understand. She instead searched through the writings concerning the decaying body of Lord Jadeite, trying to trace backwards in time. She despaired at how little they had gleaned from so much evidence still in tact. There was nothing that told her more than what they already knew. He was killed when his heart was taken out, and if a picture was worth a thousand words, it had been done with someone's bare hand while he still breathed. She could find nothing else that was any help to anyone other than that. She wanted to bang her head against the table, but it would only give her a headache she didn't need right now. If she couldn't find anything more, soon...

"Emmric," she tried again and grimaced. The sound of her own voice was cutting in the empty library, only slightly muffled by the books surrounding her. She could never get his name right, no matter how many years she'd practiced or how many times she'd tried. Certainly, he too had tried to correct her, but usually Lord Zoicite found this more amusing than insulting and would burst into laughter at her attempts.

And now, the man who had always had too much pride and too little patience had lost a dearest friend and comrade...

Mercury found herself looking out the window again, perhaps searching for morning and the light that came with it. She wondered but did not know what expression Lord Zoicite would wear but she knew in her heart that he would want vengeance. He was a prickly man full of cynicism and he was still so young in Earth years. He really wasn't very skilled at controlling himself like the other Kings, not even when compared to the hot-tempered Lord Nephrite who was all too easy to rile. Sometimes, Lord Zoicite reminded her of the untamed stallions she had once read about on a traveler's guide to Earth. They were noted to be proud, wild and spirited, and that was how Mercury saw him.

A bit unruly and ill-tempered but full of life.

She often wished she had his courage, but all she could give to her friends and fellow Senshi was the knowledge she could gather and layout methodically like the knives one used to cut open flesh. She hoped she had enough of the knowledge she needed to find the disease. Whatever and wherever it was hiding.

"Mneme, you can do this if only you believed," his voice whispered memories into her ear.

Yes, Mercury thought, bowing her head in concentration. If nothing else, I must believe! Everyone depended on her now, and she just couldn't let them down. He had believed in her and now it was time for Mercury to believe in herself.

"You made me believe," he told her the last time he had been on the Moon. His voice had been full of something she was afraid to hear and his eyes had bored intensely into her own. His hands had been almost painfully hot as they held her cheeks and forced her to look at him.

They had been saying goodbye again. It was only to be a year more before the official meeting on Earth would commence. She would miss him, but it would not be the first time that she felt this way and she doubted that it would be the last. He had been unusually quiet for the last few days, and she had wondered what had been bothering him. As if gathering his courage to him, he had grasped her arms and then her face. And when he was done admitting such an intimate thing that made her dizzy with its implications, he had bent his head much to her horror and kissed her.

It was still a very innocent kiss, just a brush of lips, but without waiting for her answer he had gone.

She remembered the press of his lips against hers, but it was the heat of his breath that made her forget how to breathe. Now, she wondered, if she would regret that moment when her shock had rendered her mute. Her inability to speak could have been the one things she would forever look back on with doubt for the rest of her life. It could have been the last goodbye, but she had always taken these abrupt partings for granted. She had been embarrassed and filled to the brim with the possibilities that he had opened to her with his reckless actions. She had hated him and been afraid of what it really meant when she found she was only using such rhetoric to soothe the nerves he had frayed in his wake.

She remembered his disappearing back and hoped it was not the last sight of him she would have.

Lady Mercury touched her fingers to her throbbing temples and wished the memories away. She had to concentrate on this current problem and not on the personal plague of thoughts that had not left her alone since he had set foot off the Moon. She was afraid in which direction and which road she had gone down without consciously choosing her course. She was terrified of what and who she was becoming.

The ambivalent emotions ate at her, goading her with the visions of Mars. The other had, not long ago, been a woman who had been reasonable, dignified and respected. Now, that same woman who had been filled with fire had passed by her in the halls, her presence cold like black ice and her eyes forever unseeing and just a little bit mad. She had often found the other lost and wondering, at times going and stopping, uncertain at doorways and in the midst of halls, and other times, striding purposefully towards places forgotten and unknown to anyone else. Hatred was black in the shadows of Mars, stale and encompassing in the air around her. Apathy followed, always closely by with quiet footsteps. And then, the aimless anger and heavy lethargy flew in attendance behind. Mercury feared the woman who now stalked the halls like a pale ghost of her former self, seeing in the faded colors a version of her future self looking back.

She feared that unlike Venus she was not as wise with her heart and that in the end, no matter what she had tried to prevent from happening, it would not be on Jupiter's list of mistakes that Lord Zoicite resided on, but her own.

* * *

The soft breeze of the starless night rustled the leaves of the Lunar Willow. In the dark, the bright red foliage were no different from the color of the bark or the duskiness of the grass. The long strands of the shivering branches quivered against the invisible caresses of an unseen wind. The garden seemed to sigh and the sound traveled up, past the vaulted cieling.

Beneath the umbrage of leaves, the rising and falling of the still adumbration was the only movement to be seen. Light tried to stretch out warm fingers into the garden but could not reach the tree at the heart of it all. The empty sky overhead peeked in, starless and infinite, guarding the draped silhouette of a girl who slept upon the marbled bench.

Her hair was indistinguishable from her flesh and the stone that she rested on. The strands trailed down to the ground, mingling with the fingers of the willow's branches and its discarded folioles curled like small snakes upon the ground. Her long hair wrap around her, tangling around her limbs like a thin web that melted her into the scenery. Her deep breathing was the only thing that could distinguish her from the other inanimate things in the garden around her.

In this peaceful alcove, away from watchful eyes and loosened lips, Beset dreamed.

In her dream, the shadows danced against the walls of her mind. It was a play of sorts, the type where the actors' lines were always too far away to distinguish and where the act itself was a mystery. She dreamed of a black sun and falling stars, equally black. The ink blots zoomed across the red outlines of tree tops, splattering dark splotches like rain on a pond. She dreamed of a fire that did not burn and a heart that did not beat. She dreamed that she entered a chamber, deep and dark and filled with things she did not want to look at or to learn about.

She dreamed of an alter, where a body lay waiting to be awakened. Onwards she went but she did not want to go. Her feet moved against her commands and her left hand burned hotter and hotter as she approached. She stopped at the ledge and opened her painful hand to watch a beloved's name become red with her blood upon her palm. In her dream she screamed, the harsh sound vibrated in her throat but her voice would not echo past her lips. She fell to her knees as the pain spread to her heart, clutching her arm to her chest in a futile attempt to protect herself.

She felt the familiar feeling come over her once more, as if all the things she held dear were lost and that she would never be able to have them back again...

Then, as she knelt there, tears falling from her eyes and wishing she never had to remember or experience again the agony of it all, she felt the air move. She blinked against the hazy veil of tears but the world was still a blur of melting blacks and greys. Before her, when her vision finally cleared a little, were a set of shining boots, dark and gleaming and flat. It was as if someone had put a scroll of art before her. Her eyes would not obey her feeling of dread and sudden fear as they traveled up trousered legs that had no dimension, and hands, so familiar that she bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. They were long and strong, elegant fingers clasped to each other loosely between the knees. They rested, as if waiting for her to acknowledge their owner. A shadow hovered and a heated breath ghosted her ear as the picture before her shifted into life...

_"I didn't tell her my name,"_ the familiar voice spoke to her in unfamiliar tones. His legs were beginning to look more real by the minute, as if the picture of the man before her was rising from the sheets of a white page and draining the colors around him to make himself real. She squeezed closed her eyes and did not know what she wanted to see before her now. The small, treacherous hope burned at the heart of the ache inside of her from the sound of his voice. _"It was you, darling, who gave her power. It was_ all _you."_ He accused her, softly and sure, in the same charming manner that once she had hated.

Beset opened her eyes and saw darkness. Her breath stilled as she remained upon the bench as unmoving as a statue. The edge of the Earth could barely be seen from where she lain, unable to respire from the forgotten words that still echoed inside of her silently. She felt as if she had been dreaming of falling and woken up just in time before hitting the ground. The paralyzing fear finally left her and she was able to raise her left hand to look at it. She didn't know why but she wanted to retrace the invisible name that had once had been written there with another's calloused finger. She blinked and touched her temple, where the tears had disappeared into her hair, surprised and annoyed at having found herself crying again in her sleep.

What had that dream...?

She rose into a sitting position, putting her head in her hands and wishing she didn't feel so out of control. Sometimes she found herself forgetting what she had been doing in the middle of a task or where she was headed in the middle of the hall. One day melted into the next and she never slept well, never knew at what particular time she was at in the midst of the disaster that befell her. She hated being so unsure of when she was seeing visions and when she was facing reality, neither of which was ever pleasant but she had never shied from either before. She hated not knowing what day she had wakened to, and when she inquired, hated that she forgot the answers she sought.

Most of all, she hated feeling as if the world had lost its colors. It was a rather ridiculous notion all together, people don't just become color blind in the midst of their lives. She hated all this, but could not find the strength in herself to change the state she was in. She knew why she felt this way but even she was surprised how this was all really happened because of the passing of a man, one who was not even a citizen of the Silver Alliance.

How could she have tied herself so intricately to him? The question called out to her in her mind, always beneath the clicking of her heels against stone and would only quiet a little when she stood completely still. Slowly, hour by hour, she was beginning to believe that she hated him too. She hated him for giving up and letting fate have its way with him, for not fighting back when he should have fought with all that he had, for not calling out to her for help in his (and her own) hour of need... For reducing her to _this_.

Beset felt so tired. She wanted to lay down against the cold rocks and sleep forever. She did not wish to ever dream again, or see another vision of the future when it was always bleak and full of destinations without choices. She was tired of speaking and not being heard, for now the healers and even the Lady Queen would not believe the visions she saw. No, they believed, but she had seen the heavy fear that closed their minds to truth she spoke.

She no longer had the desire to face her friends who had seen her as she had once seen herself. She did not want to witness the disappointment of dashed expectations on another's face, not when her own had been painful enough to look at in the gathered pools of still waters. If only she could remember other things than just what she dreamed these days, then maybe she would not feel as if she was going out of her mind. She felt often that she was withering away into nothing, and when she spoke her voice was like a breath that people forgotten the language to. Yet, suddenly she realized that she couldn't remember the dream she just had. Had she been dreaming? She cursed under her breath for her dreams had never been a problem before, but now she suspected that she had been purposefully forgetting some of them because her consciousness couldn't handle what laid in waiting for her in the dark of her mind.

Perhaps, she was not so different from those in the palace, after all.

Am I going mad? Perhaps it would be better to go mad than to become too weak to handle visions of the future. Perhaps it would be better to just lie down now and die now that she had become so useless. After all, she had just discovered that she was not as strong as she thought she had been. The Lady Queen did not need such a weakling to watch over her beloved child or the Alliance. Their ruler needed devotion that went on passed time and distance. If she died, another would be born in her place, forgetting these painfully debilitating moments and carrying the lessons she had learned here, as this Mars.

It was an important lesson, after all, to never give her heart to anyone.

Slowly, she raised her head and rested her cheek against her knee. Some time, long ago, I had been like this before, she thought to herself dreamily. I had watched a man shape wood with steel, and I had let that man shape my heart and my thoughts. I had thought he was worthy, that he would become eternal. I had thought that perhaps he had the power to change my destiny, but all that he has shown me in the end, all the possibilities he had placed before me, had only crumbled to nothing from its own brittleness. I was stripped and now I'm but bones, like the fallen dragons of my homeland. I was made for only the Queen and her child, so why did I wish for more? Why and how did I forget these lessons learned? Have I not learned them before in some previous life that my father have spoken of so fondly? Have I still not learned it well enough to carry it to the next life that awaits me?

She could not answer these questions that burned behind her eyes whenever she closed them. She wanted to kill her heart but was afraid to cut the veins that fed it. She had wanted to die, now and again, when the pain became too much but was a coward when it came time to act upon it. And she abhored herself for becoming like a shadow on the walls of her dreams and the palace of her reality.

Beset opened the hand she could not see and perceived that she now regretted wishing to become like the wood beneath the hands of a mortal man.

* * *

"Lord Jadeite!" the servant exclaimed as he saw the approaching man stride into the hall. "Where have you been, all these days? The Prince Endymion had been most worried as have your other comrades!"

Lord Jadeite paused in the hall, puzzled as he glanced around at the stone works. He pulled a hand through his hair, disheveling it, as if to clear the golden strands of cobwebs. "Forgive me," he said softly before reaching over and touching the startled servant. "But, where is the Lord Nephrite currently?" he inquired.

"The north wing," the servant answered obediently, face suddenly slack.

"Oh good," Lord Jadeite answered cheerfully. "I have need of a word with him. Be so kind as to forget this conversation all together, would you?" the servant nodded his only answer. He did not even watch the Lord Jadeite pass into the shadows, humming a strange little tune.

The servant simply stood a long time beneath the dancing torches. When he finally blinked out of his stupor, he had found that the night had wore on for quite some time and it was now early morning. "What was I doing again?" he wondered out loud to himself, touching the top of his balding head in confusion. Slowly he turned to look down the hall, as if he was expecting to see something there. The emptiness greeted him and he thought better of it and turned toward the servant's quarters instead. He tried to remember the thing that woke him in the middle of the night but couldn't recall getting out of bed.

Perhaps he had been sleep walking. He had heard of the ailment and feared that he may have been possessed by a demon in his sleep. How strange, thought the servant, I hope I'm not getting so old as to forget myself. And, if I was possessed, he thought with a shudder, I best not tell anyone about this incident...

* * *

**_TBC._**

_For sm-monthly LJ community challenge, theme 7: Wink._


	4. the memories

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters. They are the creations of Naoko Takeuchi, based entirely on her manga.

* * *

_Valli - Lady Jupiter  
Ishtar - Lady Venus  
Beset - Lady Mars_

* * *

**the feel of her name**

___My lover's gone  
his boots no longer by my door  
he left at dawn  
and as I slept I felt him go  
Returns no more  
I will not watch the ocean  
My lover's gone  
no earthly ships will ever bring him home again_

_-My Lover's Gone by Dido  
_

* * *

4. **_the memories_**

* * *

Perhaps it was the long, tiring meetings that made her careless. Perhaps it was the insomnia she suffered that dulled her senses. Or maybe, it was because she had tried so hard to ignore Mars' sudden absence that at the other's unexpected presence she could not help but start. Whatever it was, it could not excuse how she had jumped in surprise at the voice and the face that greeted her. Venus was thoroughly annoyed with herself for not realizing, in the darkness of her own room, the foreign shadow that waited for her by the edges of the half-draped windows. Not until the lights flickered on to show her the uninvited guest, and not even until the woman had broken the silence to greet her, did she even note the shifting of red hair and the movement of another's crimson dress.

"I thought you would have realized that I was here," Mars chided her casually, her fingers steepled toward the ground. The other had turned fully towards Venus then, in such a graceful manner that it almost looked like the half turn of a Venusian dance. It was like Mars had never broke and Venus had never witnessed a small piece of her dear friend's sanity splintering before her eyes.

Yet, as the lights grew in intensity, Beset's haggard face came into detail. The hollows were deeper beneath her pallid skin, not just the usual umbrage cast by lights but from a lack of nourishments and sleep. Her lips were cracked and dry, lacking the rigidity of her usual solemn sternness while maintaining none of the fleeting flexibility that hinted at rarely seen smiles. Still, her eyes were alert and alive, strangely more aware than it had been since she had been retrieved, and her hair gleamed red and gold.

"What are you doing here?" Venus felt the question leave her lips and could not dredge up a feeling of guilt for the hint of hostility there. She was exhausted and Mars was the cause of it, along with much of her current anxieties.

"I have heard that you had sent a notice to retrieve Phobos and Deimos back from their pilgrimage," Mars answered, her face as placid and clear as the still pools of water in the many hidden gardens within the palace. "I cannot allow you to call them back. The pilgrimage is sacred on Mars and, most importantly, to Martian protectors. Even if they wanted too, they cannot forsake their duties. The request would only leave them in a state where they will be unable to fulfill their duties to our gods."

"You're already forsaking yours to your Queen," Lady Venus pointed out coldly. "Why not ensure you recover some bits of what little is left of your reputation with this decree? They are your guardians and they should be here. Call it a sacrifice on their end."

Mars didn't even seethe with her usual pride. She only studied the indignant emotions radiating off of her leader and her harshly spoken words. The Venusian's face remained impassive and unreadable though, beneath her scrutiny. "What remains of my reputation?" Mars finally asked softly, a hint of mockery in her voice. "It is not worth the wrath of already angry gods," she added with a shake of her head. "You must retract that message, and if you will not, I will contact the head of the Martian priesthood to ensure of it. Even if it will bring ruin to me, I cannot allow anyone else to pay for the decisions I've made."

"They will suspect with the message I already sent, giving them evidence concerns me little," Venus answered with a frown. "Yet, as your commander, I have requested that they come back," she added sternly, unwilling to relent. She was more than ready to do what was necessary to get the situation back under control.

Mars laughed a humorless laugh. "You've been very diplomatic until now, why ruin the charade? I will go along with this specious facade if you allow them the right to appease the gods with what little affects prayers have." Those eyes held black frost beneath their reddish hues as Mars spoke as if the words left a bad taste in her mouth. "I can no longer do it for them, I have made my choices and they have made me a heretic. Yet, my gods, they spite me with my visions still."

Venus openly studied her second-in-command and a silence hung between them. Not able to hold back the outrage at the passive expression staring back, she finally spoke. "What happened to you?"

Mars raised a brow but refrained from giving another one of her eerie chuckles. "Why don't you tell me? Are you not the champion of _Love_?" The last part was almost a sneer but then Mars blinked and the blackness in her eyes finally began a slow fade into shadows. "I apologize," she said carefully, as if still trying to get a hold of herself. "I thought I was getting better."

"For the Kingdom," Venus began again, with difficulty. She could not trust the calmness that settled over Mars. "I have to call them back, Mars."

"Mars," her friend echoed. This time there was no attempt to rein in the darkness that seeped into a once luxuriant voice. "And here I thought we were passed that," the other said, speculatively. "Are we no longer, _friends_?"

Venus gritted her teeth. "You don't deserve the title if you can't act the part," she snapped angrily, her chin tilting up in defiance.

"Oh?" Mars asked. Her voice was now hard, like the edge of the ancient stone sword that protected the royal family and the Moon. "And what have you done for me lately, Ishtar, my _friend_?"

"I have sent for Phobos and Deimos, because you need help," Venus said with her face rigid.

"Help you cannot offer yourself?" Mars continued derisively, her head tilted to the side.

She froze as she looked at Mars. "Help that you won't take from me," she said after a long, agonizing pause.

The other was turning away though, just to the side, as if afraid to turn her back. They've never been like this, not even when they strongly disagreed or when they had resorted to yelling at each other, or even when they threw tantrums. Not ever. This made all their previous arguments up to this point seem petty and meaningless, unable to prepare Venus for this moment of confrontation. The Venusian felt a chasm somewhere opening between them, a yawning abyss that her confrontation a few weeks ago had not had the ability to accomplish until now. "What did you come here for?" she finally asked, the exhaustion now in her voice even as she struggled to not show it on her face. She wanted the conversation to end, before their once-close relations became worse than it already is.

Mars did not move but it was as if Venus was watching the other shed a layer of skin, becoming less a stranger and more the person she had called friend. "I dreamed," Mars said at last, voice distant and frail and full of meaning, "of the end, Ishtar."

_The end._

She wanted to ask then what the other meant. She wanted to joke about the end of the day or the end of the week, or the end of this horrid depression that made Mars a stranger and blotted out Beset's existence in this stranger's armor. Yet, the air seemed suddenly cold and filled with power, while her body was heavy with fear. Mars always gave off warmth wherever she went. It was a small leakage of the powers she contained. Still, Venus could not sense that warmth now, instead she self-consciously wrapped her hands along her forearms to stave off the shiver that went down her spine.

She wetted her lips but before she could speak, Mars was moving to the window to look at the sliver of Earth appearing over the horizon. The slope of the other's bared shoulders were more relaxed, and that earlier reluctance to show Venus her back was gone, and in its place was the preoccupation of remembering.

"Did you know that in my dreams, Lord Jadeite lives?" Mars asked, a curiosity and wonder in her voice. "Yet, in my visions, there are only monsters and corpses and blood." The red-haired woman put her hands to the glass and pressed her head to the backs of them. "Our shadows are falling away," Mars continued dreamily. "Earth is falling into darkness," she said with a sigh, tilting her head back as she looked up to the sky beyond the glass. "The palace is crumbling beneath our feet, Ishtar, but it will not be our resting grounds. The stone sword ends it all, our happiness, our misery, and the future of this world."

Venus took an involuntary step back at the power in that voice, in the half song beneath the consonants and the half spell beneath the song. "Stop it," Venus whispered, falling to her knees. The other didn't turn, even though Venus clutched her head and tried to tune out that beguiling voice. "You need to stop-"

Mars lifted her head and stared out into the darkness. "We are all of us, shadows in the dark," she continued without hearing. "The Princess, her light is dimming, a dark moon rising," she hummed as she closed her eyes and swayed, her head lolled to the side like a cat receiving a caress, "and our Lady Queen of the Moon, she shines so brightly at her fullest hour, the last hour of our current existence..."

Venus opened her mouth to scream as the spell closed upon her.

"Don't you want to be honest with yourself before the end?" Beset asked her, slippered feet suddenly visible before her dimming gaze. She was caught in the scent of the other's embrace as she fell forward into the other's arms. "Dear Ishtar of Venus, how would you go on to the next life if you refused? For _love_ is so dangerous, dear avatar."

Venus could not speak even as darkness came. She did not want to confront the road she'd walked and the choices she'd already made, long before she knew the true visage of Love and the things she stood for. She did not want to go back or look on the face of a man she could not have, one who understood what it meant to deny oneself of all things except for duty and be satisfied in choosing what was more important. She did not want to look back, only to weaken and regret the things up ahead.

On the tip of her tongue was a plea but it was as soundless as her unfinished gasp for breath.

* * *

Lady Jupiter did not like her assignment. For the twentieth time that week, Venus was visited with the other's complaints about the Earth King that Jupiter was responsible for. "Why could I not be escorting the Lord Kunzite instead, for example? You don't like him, do you, Leader?" Jupiter asked suddenly, her verdant eyes glittering with mischief instead of irritation while her pale cheeks pinked at the ideas forming behind her inquiring gaze. "He's _very_ handsome!"

Venus rolled her eyes at this. Jupiter had said similar things about Lord Nephrite when the Kings first arrived. This was, of course, before he opened his mouth. The Jovian was a sucker for strong men, no matter their origins, their manners, or how emotionally stunted they were. This was probably the reason why the other was always having so much trouble with the opposite sex. Lord Kunzite would be difficult for Jupiter, in every way imaginable. Where Lord Nephrite spoke of whatever was on his mind, Lord Kunzite would speak very little, if at all. With Jupiter so eager to please and never too comfortable in the silence of strangers, the secrets of the Silver Alliance would flow out of her like wine at a bacchanalian. Of course, Lord Kunzite would undoubtedly be deliciously distracting eye-candy for everyone while this was happening, but he knew this perfectly well without Venus having to provide the unnecessary opportunities.

"It wouldn't work for you, Jupiter. He can't speak two words without reverting into silence," Venus answered reasonably though her tone remained disapproving as she crossed her arms. "He leads them you know? I'm sure he has a very good grasp of Lunarian too, but do you see him saying a word of it in our presence? If you're having trouble with Lord Nephrite's views of the Moon, think about how much worse the prejudice of their leading commander must be to encourage the behavior! You know that Prince Endymion is the only decent one of the lot, but the Queen and the Counselor Luna are seeing to him themselves." Most of that personal escort service was to soothe whatever insult that might have cropped up due to a lack of introductions to the crown Princess. They were already pushing it with the warnings from every god or goddess from every planet imaginable, no need to jump off a cliff with the prophecy at stake.

Jupiter made a face. "At least I wouldn't have to hear about his prejudices if you switched yours with mine," the other grumped. "Lord Nephrite can't go on two minutes without complaining about the latest thing Counselor Luna has made us show them. I've plain given up pointing anything out in the room. If he wants to complain about it, at least he'll be the one giving new names to the things he's never before seen!"

"I doubt that would deter him," Venus answered drily.

"It makes him think twice," Jupiter replied in a supercilious tone. "I don't want to help him make my life more miserable when his very presence does the trick! At least now I can point out his follies right away when he's being so blatant about it," she said with a bit of malicious intent. Jupiter paused and frowned at her own words then, her previously malevolent expression melting into worry. "Oh dear, he will totally ruin my reputation as being the most amiable one!"

"Not enough compensation with the tomfoolery you put him through?" Venus asked wearily, deciding not to address the last part of her friend's complaints.

"No!" Jupiter answered immediately. The other's eyes suddenly hardened again as she met Venus' steady gaze. "You don't want me to ruin years of difficult negotiations by strangling an ambassador now, would you?" the other suddenly threatened sweetly. Venus stared at her subordinate incredulously, doubt in her unwavering gaze. "I will do it." Jupiter said with her fist hitting her opened palm for emphasis. "I've thought about it a million times already, training myself with visual simulations. I admit, cutting out his tongue was a bit of a distasteful thing even when I was only imagining it but I'm_definitely_ imagining it. Don't you think that's a bit... _dangerous_?" Jupiter wheedled.

Her blonde leader snorted. "I'm not switching you to Lord Kunzite, period, or any of the others, for that matter. You can threaten but if you've still got a head to think about ruining the negotiations, you can still keep your hands off of him I'm sure."

"You make it sound dirty," Jupiter said dejectedly, slouching into her seat for the first time in years. She had stared at her commander a good, long time, but she knew Venus was quite serious about everything the other had stated already. The sparkle in Jupiter's eyes diminished again, knowing that she would not be trading in her ambassador for another's. "Here I am, suffering, and all you can do is telling me I won't kill him, so it's alright? Why, if the Queen could hear you now-!"

"No need," Lady Venus cut in with a bit of jaded humor. "I'm sure even she's been in earshot of you disparaging the Lord Nephrite by now, or at the very least, I'm sure she's heard of it more than once from our Counselor Luna. I don't think there exists a single person in the whole palace who has not been made aware of your sentiments for him."

"It's not like the feeling isn't mutual," Jupiter said in a huff. "You make it sound like it's all my fault!"

Venus forced herself to not roll her eyes again. "You two will just have to learn to get along. Part of the training, you see? We have to learn what and how to get around the road-blocks of negotiating with Earth on a basis of a permanent alliance. You too bring up the most interesting of biases when you're together and we could learn something from that. You can see that your service is for the greater good, can you not, Lady Jupiter?"

The green-haired woman straightened at her title with a proud air before making a face at her commander when the implications set in. "You're an unsympathizing, sacrificial priest, that's what you are!" she told the other, rising with emphasis. "You just want to keep Lord Kunzite all to yourself!" Jupiter tried one last time with an accusing tone, her hands on her hips as she gave her last stand. Venus remained nonchalant as the other began to study her nails on one hand and entirely ignored both the comment and the look being shot at her. Jupiter snorted as this and turned towards the doors when it was the only reaction she got. "Pretend all you want," Jupiter tossed over her shoulder, waving one finger at the ceiling. "Even if I'm not the Goddess of Love and Beauty, I know you want what's in his pants!"

Venus suppressed the irate twitch of her eyebrows at such vulgarity, even if Jupiter couldn't see it. Apparently, the Lord Nephrite was having more influence on Lady Jupiter than just her temper. "We're meeting in an hour to finish the tour of the palace," she said instead to the stiffened shoulders of Lady Jupiter. "Don't forget to bring Lord Nephrite along, this time. We wouldn't want you to accidentally lose him again in the halls like that unfortunate incident before the welcoming ball."

"Just count on me," Jupiter said with a forced laugh before harshly slamming the door behind her. If the material hadn't been Lunarian steel, the door wouldn't have been much of a door anymore.

Venus grimaced after a long silence before she put her head to her hand. Why did she let Jupiter provoke her? She knew the other was under a lot of stress, but there was just no way to switch the Kings to new escorts without insulting their guests. She hadn't lied, after all. _Everyone_ knew Jupiter and Nephrite did not get along. Venus sighed deeply and got up to look out her window. Sometimes, she was sure that friends were far worse to deal with than enemies.

* * *

Perhaps it was the parasol, a crescent smile of night-time lilies on a midnight sky, which caught his eye. Perhaps it was the golden spill of hair along her back and the line of her cheekbone, pale but shadowed, against the sparkling waters. Or maybe it was the sound of the wind through the grass and the scent of living things, moving and alive, a sense that almost made this artificial world real while she had stood as if she were a part of that flow of life. Whatever it was, he had noticed her immediately in his wonderings through the lower sections of town, on the edges of the great capital of the Moon, and she had looked natural and at home when he had never been able to think of her as any more real than her alien world until that moment.

He had thought that Lady Mercury would be the one more inclined to visit the cliffs beside the Mare Serenitatis, had been prepared to run into the blue-haired Hermesians, but it was the sight of glittering Venus that greeted him. She was quite like a golden statue beneath the sun. The only thing giving her away had been her pale skin and the rise of her chest from her breathing. These half-hidden nuances belied his impression.

She came to life that day by the sea. There had been more in that moment than the sum of the flow of her words or her careful attentiveness when they had walked side-by-side within the palace. There existed more in her presence than her graceful, dancer's motions whenever she left his side to go about her duties. He found that there was even more to her than her manners or her scent or her breath within those manufactured walls. Here, at the edges of the Moon's capital, the edges of their grand civilization and their grandiose illusions, the lines of her untensed body finally caught his attention.

The city did not sparkle in the day, not like it did in the darkness of evening, but its gleaming walls were still an impressive sight. He had wondered down the winding streets, wanting to see what Lord Zoicite had spoken about in his earlier reports. Much of his time was spent with either the Lady Venus or the Counselor Luna. When there was any free time at all, he spent it with his Prince and sometimes in the private sparring halls with the other Kings, who he only saw late in the evenings on some days and not at all on others. This was the first chance he had of surveying what lay outside the palace, something he had looked forward to with both anticipation and reservation.

She did not acknowledge him as he approached, but they both knew the other was there. "How do you do, Lady Venus?" he greeted as he approached.

"Lord Kunzite," she acknowledged in return with a nod and the same secretive smile that worked on much of the men, and some of the women, at court. "What a surprise to see you, here."

"Hn," he answered and fell into silence as they watched the waves gently caress the rocks below. Some time passed in silence, a surprise in itself since Lady Venus was rarely quiet. He did not feel the need to speak and was not sure what to say to her. There was much more he could learn from the things she told him and Earth was not a topic he wished to divulge unless directly asked. Yet, her stillness and her thoughtful expression was something he was witnessing for the first time.

She was a rather alien creature herself. Not just because she was from Venus but because she was usually so alive and vivacious that this sudden change of temperament was unsettling. "Have you enjoyed yourself, Lord Kunzite?" she asked him at last. He held back a sigh of relief at her voice, before thinking of his answer.

"It is... _different_," he conceded.

"From Earth?" she inquired but her smile was playful. She was teasing him again about his reticence.

"Yes," he answered without his face showing how much enjoyment he was getting out of her shooting him a look of fabricated impatience. She blew at her bangs childishly and wrinkled her nose at him. He had heard often that her status at court was to be the Princess' shadow, and had often wondered what the duty entailed. If the Princess looked like Venus, then there was little doubt of the rumors concerning the Moon-heir's beauty. Yet, he had trouble imagining another as lively as the woman beside him.

Perhaps the rumored heir had more of the Lady Queen's silver and white colorings than the glittering gold of this Venusian woman. There was a lot of perhaps that followed that particular thought. He wondered if they were related by blood and if so how she was related to the succession of thrones. He had heard rumors of the ancient female warriors called the Sailor Senshi, and wondered if she knew more about them than the terrifying tales that so rarely appeared in the text of ancient monastic libraries and even more ancient temples dedicated to forgotten gods.

She reached forward from the corner of his eye and he stiffened as she touched his hair. A gentle tug and in her hand was a prickly seed. Her cheeks were pink as she finally looked back up at him with a playful smile. She told him its origins before pursing of her lips and blowing it into the sea. "Now it can grow, and you can make a wish," she said with a grin. "Children on the Moon like to call them Falling Stars, because of its shape."

It was strange that despite the years that they had spent, traveling to the Moon, this was the first time she had ever touched him. He smiled, ever so faintly at her explanation instead, turning away from the fleeting feeling that visited him too briefly to acknowledge. He thought of the sun instead, and how it brought such warm light to the living things in the daylight hours, even with the Moon that only showed her face at night on Earth and the barren lands she was sovereign to here. They were, perhaps, not as different as he was used to assuming. "I always wanted to ask you," he finally said. "Do the Venusians worship snakes?" He eyed the golden bracelet that encircled her forearm with some speculation. He had seen her wear many gold and intricate jewelry featuring snakes, and it was rumored that the Lady Venus had real ones as pets.

She blinked at him before bursting into laughter. "Ah, if the Counselor Luna could hear you now!" she exclaimed between her stifled giggles. He shot her a curious look, for she was a creature full of laughter, even though, once in awhile, he saw the deference shown to her by the other Ladies representing their respective planets. Once, he had even caught a far away and solemn expression flit across her face, but it was rare that she showed the thoughts that raced behind her eyes. He often wondered if she wore a different face to the court and the rest of the universe, one that only fell away in the presence of the Lady Queen and the highest circles of the inner court.

"Is my question very funny?" he continued, after her laughter died away.

"Very," she agreed. It was a few moments before she answered, as if trying to decide what to tell him. "I like them," she said, opting for the simplest of explanations. "They do not survive on Venus, but we have many stories about them and they are considered very wise. I have heard that some cultures on Earth see them as evil," she said with a frown.

"They are rather dangerous," he conceded.

"Only when provoked," she defended, her voice rising as if she were the one being insulted. She broke into a smile at his impassive stare, the only reaction he had to her words. "Oh, but they are such interesting creatures! Most people don't even realize what wonderful companions they are depriving themselves of."

"I take it that Counselor Luna does not share this interest with you then?" he finally said instead.

"Oh, she's from the Planet Mau and, even if you can't tell by her manners she's, what's the term? She's a cowardly cat!" Venus exclaimed childishly with a laugh, her parasol shaking in her hands at his rather incredulous expression.

"I don't think I have heard of such a term," he ventured carefully.

"Well, that's what she is!" Venus told him. "One time," Venus continued without pause. "Lady Mars threatened to burn them when I compared them to her planet's dragons. She is so very uptight about her dragons, why I've never seen her so insulted since!" Venus gossiped.

Kunzite suddenly had a strange vision of a very irate Lady Mars, though he had never seen the Lady as anything but calm. "I don't think-" he began.

"Oh, everyone thinks she's not like the stories concerning Martians and how warlike they're still rumored to be," Venus cut in without notice at him closing his mouth in amusement. "But if you pull on just the right levers, she can explode on you. She's very good at keeping her temper in check and she's never slipped in public, but-" Venus stopped herself and glanced at him, twirling her parasol guiltily while pouting. "I shouldn't tell you this, she would never forgive me."

"I'm sure you have many stories to tell," he said diplomatically, unsure if he wanted to hear and goaded into curiosity nonetheless.

"Many," Lady Venus laughed, her expression clear once more. "I admit though, that I never thought Lady Jupiter had such a short fuse either until your Lord Nephrite showed up."

Kunzite gave the sea a rather weary look instead of his companion. "He has his moments," he said drily.

"What do you think of the Moon?" Lady Venus asked after only a very short pause. He was surprised at the sudden change of topic, though he should have been used to it by now. He was also even more amused when she didn't continue and waited for his reply.

"I think it's a beautiful place," he answered at last, half expecting her to cut him off again.

"But you miss Earth, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied honestly.

"I miss Venus, too," she told him. "It is barren and I am not allowed to visit the cities beneath my home when I do go back, but I had watched out that window many times in my life. I had spent my whole life wondering what the people there, my people, are like. Sometimes, I walk these streets and wonder how different it is from the home I left behind."

"When did you come here?" Kunzite inquired. He had been surprised by the confession but unwilling to push her towards the slow, spreading melancholy in her voice.

"In Earth years? Perhaps I was the equivalent of nine or ten when I was here permanently," she answered. "I had trained my whole life to be here, and I have loved the Princess since her birth," Venus said the last part with a faint and genuine smile, so unlike her usual smiles. It was a small movement of lips but her expression was suddenly full of soft affection and lacked a lot of the effusive warmth that came naturally with her other smiles. "Did you know, it is so rare to meet people who love their duties and their masters," she finally said without a hint of humor. All of a sudden, he could sense all her attention upon him, even though she did not turn once to look his way. "Yet, I see it whenever you and Prince Endymion are in a room together," she turned her head to him at last, her gaze like a soft caress upon his face. The wind blew by with the strange scent of a foreign sea but the moment did not pass like so many moments between them. "Are you very sad that one day he may fall in love, find someone he cares for more than life itself?"

"I hope he finds the greatest of happiness," he answered automatically, refusing to dwell on the slight pang in his chest. He dutifully evaded the look in her eyes at his own refusal to lay bare a small piece of himself, and how she knew what he meant even though he had not been entirely forthright. Down that road was complications he preferred not to dwell upon, no matter how easily he was drawn to wonder at its possibilities since meeting her.

Venus turned her head away, her face the same warm mask she had worn upon greeting him earlier. "Yes," she agreed, and yet it sounded so much like resignation. Her hand only tightened ever so slightly against the handle of the parasol and her lips were curved back into a smile that was full of fleeting, untouchable happiness...

"So do I."

* * *

"You like him!" Lady Jupiter pointed at Venus with an accusing finger as she stormed into the meeting room.

"Why don't you say it a bit louder so everyone else in the palace knows," Lady Mars replied steadily as she looked pointedly at her peer. Despite the disapproval in her tone, she was obviously amused by the whole ordeal nonetheless.

For the last few years, a silent battle of wills has started in bursts of guerrilla warfare between Venus and Jupiter. Mercury and Mars stayed away from the conflict as much as possible, but they did begin a betting pool on what started the ordeal to begin with. Mars was sure it was when Venus not-so-accidentally joked to Lord Nephrite that Lady Jupiter threw a vase at his head as a type of Jovian ritual for a marriage proposal. She had said it in such a convincing manner that when she airily added, "Just kidding!" no one who lacked the knowledge of Jovian marriage customs would have believed her. Unfortunately for Jupiter, Lord Nephrite certainly knew no more about Jovian marriage rights than he did about Venusian trickery and it certainly only made an already awkward situation worse.

Mercury, on the other hand, was certain it was something entirely different. She had overheard a conversation between an embarrassed Jupiter and the Counselor Luna earlier that year. She had, of course, been the only other Senshi present for the incident, but she had not realized the all it entailed until this particular conversation enlightened her. Jupiter had thought about how Venus was hiding her passionate affections from Lord Kunzite when Lord Jadeite was about. She had been apologizing to Luna when the other chastised her about it. The man, after all, had turned a rather pale shade of grey at whatever loud thoughts Jupiter was airing that day and Lady Jupiter embarrassedly blurted out in front of Kunzite, and half the court, that she was only thinking of a conversation she had with Venus.

Jupiter added oil to the flame when she mumbled guiltily about affections and dreamy while underhandedly glancing shyly, but pointedly, between the ground and a rather perplexed Kunzite. Mercury had not heard entirely all that Jupiter had said at court that day, but she did hear Venus and dreamy while Jupiter had looked at Kunzite. The only indication of the lasting effects of that particular conversation was the fact that Lord Kunzite had walked away from that incident rather more stiffly than usual. Well, that and Prince Endymion and Lord Nephrite liked to revisit the subject in as many ways as possible whenever they saw Lord Kunzite walking far more rigidly beside Lady Venus than ever before for the rest of the visit that year.

Venus never did find out, though she suspected it right away, until Lord Kunzite had left the Moon. To say she was upset with the spread of "lies", as she called them, was the understatement of the century. Counselor Artemis had expressly forbidden Jupiter and Venus to spar with each other for the remainder of the season, or until they got a hold of their manners (and themselves), whichever came first. The destruction they left in the Northern Wing of the Palace was still something that was whispered about at the market place, though everyone wisely kept those episodes from the ears of the Princess.

It was not even that Serenity didn't hear about the destruction of the wing, but Counselor Luna diplomatically told her a half truth of what had happened.

Lady Mercury didn't even bother to hide her expression anymore and just looked down-right amused. "If only everyone would have this type of enthusiasm for their research and studies," she lamented but no one listened to her on this. Mercury sighed to herself, and if she wasn't already so used to the treatment she got whenever she mentioned their studies, she would have been insulted.

"Who?" Princess Serenity demanded with urgency. The pale princess had already leaped onto her feet, face full of excitement while her hands were on her hips as she swung her full, demanding stare onto Venus.

"Lord Kunzite!" Lady Jupiter supplied with too much relish for Venus' liking. The Jovian was obviously still not over the fact that her commander had denied her turning Lord Nephrite onto someone else, anyone else (or her later suggestions to just strangle him, period). It had been years since that conversation but the feud was still not over.

Princess Serenity looked outraged at this. "Ishtar, why did you not inform me of this?" the girl demanded. The Princess's eyes were sharp and her already mouth set in a frown. Serenity quickly changed as she clasped her hands together, as if in the midst of a prayer or the middle of a day-dream. "It's just so romantic! I mean, forbidden love! Clandestine meetings behind our vast numbers of pillars and gardens! The palace is practically built for this type of thing!" Then, tears formed at the corners of the pale girl's eyes as she turned to Venus full force, once more accusing. "Did you not trust me with this terribly _important_ news?"

Mars looked like she was holding back exasperation and Mercury turned away to the window, unable to witness the scene with a straight face anymore and not wanting to face the full wrath of Venus' unforgiving stares. The blonde glared at them both nonetheless before turning back to the expectant Princess, refusing to even spare Jupiter a look. "I think you're mistaken," Venus said slowly and carefully, trying to soothe her agitated charge. "I am not in love with anyone-"

"She's in denial," Jupiter butted in quickly.

"Valli, I have it on good authority that _you_ are the one in denial," Venus bit back viciously. Mars made a rather suspicious noise at this and Mercury clutched her shoulders hard.

Jupiter snorted at her commander's words before thrusting out her hands, as if to show evidence. "See?" the Jovian demanded. "She obviously likes him!"

Princess Serenity looked suddenly perplexed, unsure who to badger first for information on the love lives she was obviously not partial to hearing about or observing with her own eyes. It was a shame because she didn't think the others would appreciate it half as much as she would. Serenity straightened and with great fortitude, quickly making up her mind and turning to Venus with a determined look on her face. "Are you going to get married in secret?" she requisitioned, eyes fiercely serious. Venus just stared, slack-jawed at the Princess who seemed to have lost her mind. "Because if you are, I just want you to know that I won't stand in the way! I won't allow it! In fact, I will never stand in the way of _true love_ and I will fight against anyone who tries!" Serenity stated imperiously, her index finger pointing to the ceiling as she shook it threateningly at the unseen heavens above. The other girl's usually quiet voice rose to a crescendo on _true love_ and was forceful for much of her impromptu speech. In case anyone, including the gods, disagreed with her on this.

Mars coughed harshly into her hand in a spasming fit and Mercury started shaking by the window so hard she gave up holding onto them, hands clamped over her mouth instead. Jupiter just looked down right smug. "You're very virtuous, Princess," the Jovian said with sycophantic sweetness in the silence of Venus being too busy gaping. Jupiter, after all, was more than willing to fan the flames of Serenity's already overactive imagination. "What with all those unscheduled and secluded meetings between the leaders of our two parties, who knows what might happen _next_?" Jupiter supplied shameless, adding it all with delicious, theatrical emphasis. The Princess gasped, hand to her parted lips, torn between looking scandalized and fascinated, and ready to burst with thousands of questions concerning this secret courtship going on beneath her very nose.

Four pairs of eyes turned to Venus then while she contemplated between wiring her suddenly unhinged jaw shut and murdering her friends.

* * *

"How did you know?" Venus asked quietly, facing a familiar ceiling from where she was lain.

Mars stilled her hands, her silver brush gleaming as she stared at her leader through the glass. Her face was expressionless as she studied the other, though all that was visible was golden hair and the straight line of her nose. "Sometimes you acted like a child, and sometimes, you were serious," she finally answered as the quiet settled. "I have never seen you want to pretend so hard to be something you weren't and unable to decide what mask to wear."

Venus rolled onto her stomach and studied the other through the mirror. "Why did you make me look back? Wouldn't I be less effective knowing this?"

Mars smiled a very small smile, and yet it was full of bitterness. "No," she answered. "Who wants a leader to find her true feelings in the midst of a war?"

"He's never coming back, you know?" Venus mentioned instead, remembering the visions that Beset had spoken off. She would rather be cruel now, after being forced to face her own feelings, than dwell on the emotions she had discovered.

"I know," Mars answered without sadness or pain or weariness. Her face was blank of weariness and her body straight and alert. "At least, not the way I want him to," she added cryptically, in between one breath and the next.

"Was it unavoidable?" Venus asked, still unwilling to delve into how or where her feelings had gone without her consent.

Mars set down her brush and ran her hand through the silken strands. She studied them in silence before looking out her window at the empty sky. "I don't know," she said softly.

Venus understood that look now, but she wished back the ignorance of her denials. Unlike the others, she had always known, long ago, what her answer would be. There had never been any doubt and her treacherous heart changed nothing. Only on quiet evenings, alone in the darkness and her solitude could the lament of her decisions approach without consent. Those moments were shadows in the growing light of her growing Princess, and it was an anguish that she could bear without complaint.

The Senshi of Love and Beauty, Venus thought bitterly as she rested her cheek against the familiar coverings. It was cruel of fate to give her such a mantle, she thought. She would never be able to freely pursue one, even if she wore the mask of the other so well. Perhaps there, was where her tragedy laid.

* * *

Lady Beryl gave out a tired sigh as she stepped back into her shadow realm. Revolution was hard work, and even if she was corrupting many of her new minions with dark powers, she couldn't very well flaunt it too openly. At least, not until Lord Kunzite was in her grasps and Prince Endymion was close to falling into the trap she'd set for him. One must practice patience if one was to succeed, contrary to Queen Metallia's beliefs. Now, there was a being that was obviously too powerful to care about the nuances of success or even consider the possibilities of failure.

She often wondered what the witch would do without her, though she was careful not to think such thoughts in the other's presence.

Her dark hair faded into crimson and her peasant dress turned into a gown of royal purple as she entered the long hallway. Rags turned into jewels and plainness to beauty, and that was how Lady Beryl saw herself. The universe viewed Earth like the men in her armies viewed her, a symbol of change but no more than that. Beneath the fragile facade, however, was a treasure and a power unknown, waiting for her to wield it.

The Kings were talking amongst themselves, but their conversations quickly ended at her entrance. They bowed their heads and dared not watch her approach. While she ascended to her throne, they gathered at the bottom of the staircase and knelt in reverence and obedience.

Lady Beryl smiled as she seated herself, pausing in her thoughts of conquest to admire her recent prizes. Of course, her quiet campaign to win over the other Kings had been going very successfully with Lord Jadeite's help. He was so very good at manipulating the minds of others, something she always had an inkling of, but never guessed at the extent of those untapped talents. He had been too ethical in the past, so it had been hard to tell where he could go with what he had, but such habits had made him very discreet. It was a bonus, for Lady Beryl doubted that favor would be on her side completely until all the Kings were hers. Of course, to ensure their future loyalties, Lady Beryl bided her time on how to best bind them to her even more so than they were now.

"Lord Kunzite will be the hardest," Lady Beryl mused to herself, while admiring her own accomplishments. She tapped a long finger against the arm of her chair and watched with curious distrust while Lord Jadeite knelt at her feet as did Lord Nephrite and Zoicite. They were splayed before her, a tally of bodies now in her possessions. Still, there was something she could not put her finger on. A restlessness that visited her whenever she looked at them, it made her uneasy. Until the binding with all four Kings were done in oaths of blood, at the very least, she would not be secure in their devotions.

It had taken some refining to her technique, but she was able to convert the other two without having to resort to bringing in outside help. In the end, their hearts weren't so corrupted and she could trust them to be a bit less likely to remember unpleasant memories. This time, she had whole bodies to work with instead of just parts, though it was always the most important part that mattered.

"Soon," she promised with an anticipatory smile, "my collection would be complete."

Still, Metallia's impatient suggestions could not be fully trusted. To ensure her current Queen didn't betray her with her new subjects, Lady Beryl needed to make sure these men could never betray her. Lord Kunzite, the last of Endymion's supporters and the most challenging, he would be the last piece to the crown she would prepare for Endymion's rise. They would all be hers soon, though she must ensure their loyalties were absolute, as would be her powers when this was all over.

It had been a risky gamble with Lord Jadeite, especially when he had gotten quite a bit further than she had thought he had any powers left to do. He was rather an accident, stumbling upon her when she had been aiming for Lord Zoicite, the youngest and least experienced King. Yet, because of that incident, the Moon had closed off all communications with Earth because of what it had found. Perhaps she should be glad, for now she had one more reason to use against them and it didn't appear they were sharing the intelligence needed to set anyone against her.

And who was to say she was lying? The Moon could very well be planning an attack on the Earth and stealing their resources once oppositions were out of the way. They could very well be threatened by powers they had never thought the Earth could possess.

"Show me the last man standing," Beryl said with an indulgent smile as she trailed her nail along the crystal ball. "All of his weaknesses," she purred. "Hadi, the Middle Eastern King of Earth."

Beneath her, the Dark Generals waited, as still and as silent as marble busts.

* * *

_**TBC****.**_

_For sm-monthly LJ community challenge, theme 10: Plan.  
_


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